Spectra Logic last month announced that the British Film Institute (BFI), the lead organization for film in the UK, commissioned OvationData to deploy two Spectra® T950 Tape Libraries and two Spectra® BlackPearl® Converged Storage Systems for long-term digital preservation of the UK’s film history, as part of its Unlocking Film Heritage digitization project.

The announcement and case study received widespread media coverage, with many industry and press outlets detailing how Spectra’s non-proprietary and genetically diverse solution will enable the BFI to protect and preserve its valuable digital assets for decades to come, making its archives easily accessible to filmmakers, researchers and the general public. read more

Today’s media and entertainment (M & E) market is experiencing seismic shifts. The way media is consumed continues to evolve, and the majority of people in the world have instant access to a surplus of content at all times.  The volume of digital assets created each day by media and entertainment (M & E) organizations continues to grow exponentially over time and shows no sign of slowing down, with video being the single biggest driver of growth in the industry through multi-camera images, higher resolution and HDR content. Moreover, the data storage needs of content owners are changing as technology evolves. read more

As I write this, I am currently flying back home to the United States after another great show for Spectra at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. The show brings together almost 60,000 visitors, attracting different players from the media and entertainment industry from all over the world. The conference’s program of panels, discussions and keynotes features more than 400 speakers and is complemented by a comprehensive exhibition which brings together close to 1700 exhibitors, each showcasing the state of the art in technology. I am exhausted but also energized from all the great conversations we had with customers and partners. read more

By Hossein ZiaShakeri, Spectra senior vice president of business development & strategic alliances

In today’s dynamic and ever-changing market where technology shifts with priorities and business models, there exists tremendous confusion and industry consolidation. It is crucial for media and entertainment (M & E) entities to adapt to the fast-paced market to remain on top, keep a competitive edge and stay successful. Re-evaluating one’s strategies and looking forward is essential – hence the phrase ‘adapt or die’. To stay relevant, entertainment businesses must be agile, efficient, and innovative in the way that they produce, store, manage, and distribute their content. As M & E organizations try to find the right infrastructure to manage content throughout its life cycle, they are faced not only with the question of what strategy will provide the greatest return on investment (ROI) and drive positive business outcomes, but which company they can trust with this business-critical decision. read more

Hurricane Florence is expected to strike the southeastern portion of the United States very soon.  In fact, governors of North and South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia have already declared states of emergency far ahead of the approaching storm.

As Spectra Logic’s customers along Hurricane Florence’s path prepare to protect their homes and families, our team is ramping up to support their business operations wherever possible by initiating our Storage Crisis Lifeline program, which was first introduced in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. read more

by Fred Moore
President, Horison Information Strategies

The changing landscape of the data protection industry has evolved from backing up data to providing recovery from hardware and network failures, software bugs, and human errors, as well as fighting a mounting wave of cybercrime. Over the years, reliability and resiliency level of hardware and software have significantly improved. Cybercrime, however, has now become a bigger threat to data protection than accidental deletion, bit rot or drive failure. And the stakes are getting higher as anonymous cyber criminals seek to profit from the valuable digital data of others. With a ceasefire in the cybercrime war unlikely, we are witnessing the convergence of data protection and cybersecurity to counter rapidly growing cybercrime threats, including ransomware. read more

In my last blog, I discussed types of “data movers” including backup, archive, HSM and migration. These are ways to move data, but where are you moving the data to? Disk? Tape? Cloud? A combination of those? The significance of “data mover” applications to an organization’s workflow is closely tied to other elements of their data storage ecosystem, namely storage targets.

Over time, storage targets have evolved from repositories completely “unaware” of the data they hold to hyper-intelligent data management platforms. On one end of the spectrum, more typically found in tier-1 storage, are Storage Area Networks (SANs). These repositories, which are unaware of the data they hold, offer up blocks of storage which a server’s file system or a database administrator must configure into usable storage. With the advent of Network Attached Storage (NAS), storage devices use their own processing power and file system to lay data across blocks – presenting the storage as a folder of files which can be accessed by multiple servers, and even servers with varying operating systems and/or file systems, across the network. SAN and NAS are commonly found in tier-1 data storage, although they can be used in tier-2 storage as well. read more

It’s 1985. You’re the last one to leave the office that afternoon. You go into the server room, put the 8-inch floppy disk in the drive, go back to your office, type a backup command via the “terminal” on your desk, and now you’re free to go home. Your data is being backed up and safe. One last thing… don’t forget to take yesterday’s backup floppy with you in case the building burns down over night. OK, maybe you worked for a slightly larger company than I did in 1985, but it worked pretty much the same.  There was storage and backup for the storage. We didn’t refer to “primary” storage.  Disk was storage and all floppies, CDs, or tape was backup to that storage. read more

Data is a central part of our day-to-day as a society, from our personal electronic devices, like smart phones and tablets, to our professional lives. Major industries like agriculture, transportation, energy, healthcare and finance, to name a few, all rely on it. Whether you’re working behind a computer or at a job site building houses, digital information is an intricate part of your environment. The intrinsic value of data, be it the intelligence, communication or analysis of it, points to a revolution in how we access, manage and consume it. In order to enable organizations to thrive within the unsurpassed data growth of modern times, storage technologies have evolved accordingly. read more

Spectra Logic has released a new version of its BlackPearl software, version 5.0. The update, which was announced in a recent press release, introduces several major new enhancements, including object versioning and staging, chunk aggregation, and a host of intelligent object management attributes. The feature-rich software is a key component of Spectra’s BlackPearl® Converged Storage System, a purpose-built storage platform that integrates directly with ”data mover” software applications to simplify workflows, and seamlessly manages large volumes of content to a variety of storage targets, including disk, tape and public cloud. The latest software advancements provide modern data centers with lower storage costs, time advantages, and improved capacity and data integrity. read more