Unlike legacy storage vendors, DigitalGlue’s creative.space STaaS (Storage-as-a-Service) platform, turns enterprise storage into a fixed operational expense, paid monthly or annually. This unique financial model, also known as “On-Premise Managed Storage,” provides an on-premise collaborative storage solution for video teams that is fast, reliable, and more affordable than any other offering on the market. Acquiring enterprise-level storage typically requires a large upfront capital investment in a quickly depreciating asset that needs to be replaced every 3-5 years, leaving customers in an endless cycle of lengthy budget approval processes. On top of the large upfront expense, most storage vendors also require an annual service level agreement for reactive support, typically costing 15-20% of the initial hardware investment every year. As a turnkey service, DigitalGlue proactively monitors the storage, eliminating or lowering internal I.T. labor costs and even preventing the service outages that can occur when customers leave systems unmanaged.
DigitalGlue has been a trusted partner of one of the largest box retailers in the United States for almost a decade; providing integration equipment and custom software development services. Towards the end of their existing legacy storage support contract, the company’s head of television engineering started looking at replacement options and reached out to Tim Anderson, DigitalGlue CTO, for a demonstration of creative.space.
The large production team needed a storage solution that was easy to adopt, simple to use, fast, and reliable. DigitalGlue brought in the entry-level portable //ROGUE server so the box retailer’s head of TV engineering could see the software interface, system speeds, and discuss how it could integrate into their complex network. Since each of the solutions in the creative.space line-up comes with the same innovative software, the lead engineer knew that if his team could adapt to the 48TB //ROGUE, then they would have no issues scaling up to bigger capacities down the road. During the initial demonstration, the lead engineer referred to the creative.space software as a “game-changer” and secured funds to purchase the //ROGUE almost immediately.
Customers’ needs have always been at the forefront of creative.space’s user-driven design. Focusing on maintaining an open dialogue with Early Adopters like Brat TV, Real by Fake, and Pickathon has helped shape the intuitive, feature-rich, creative.space software users interact with today. After extensive testing, the box retailer sat down with DigitalGlue’s development team to build a custom-tailored implementation of creative.space that included the features and functionality needed to accommodate their specific workflow requirements; all running on a new 288TB //DEUS EX rackmount storage server.
When asked about the decision to switch to creative.space, the lead television engineer said the decision was a “no brainer” expressing how “the //DEUS EX is much more economical. We are getting software, hardware, and 24/7 technical support for the same cost as our previous service contract alone.” Additionally, because of creative.space, the box retailer went from half a rack of hardware requiring regular supervision to only four rack units (4 RU), lowering their heat and electrical costs, and reducing points of possible failure. creative.space provided not only the lowest total cost of ownership but also met their specific workflow and performance needs.
In addition to the innovative financial model, creative.space’s media-optimized ZFS storage architecture allows the creative.space server to achieve unparalleled performance when compared to other solutions on the market. When the box retailer’s head of TV engineering tested transferring a 2.27 GB file to both his previous storage and his new creative.space server, he discovered that the transfer time went from 25 seconds down to 3 seconds. In terms of bandwidth, the transfer went from about 150 MB/s to 1.02 GB/s, which is nearly 7 times as fast. Adaptive Replacement Cache (ARC) technology allows the entire creative.space storage line-up to provide this next-generation performance, even from servers with only four hard drives, freeing customers from the previous requirement of increasing drive count to achieve the performance needed for real-time video playback.
With creative.space, the box retailer’s production team is able to access the same storage at the same time without any performance bottlenecks. The lead television engineer is able to set user-access for all of his editors to ensure that only relevant project files are visible to specific roles within their teams. The creative.space Desktop Application allows multiple users to mount project directories and work on their respective Final Cut Pro X projects, replacing the custom check-in/check-out workflow DigitalGlue had created for their previous storage hardware. In addition to post production users, the storage is also integrated with the box retailer’s live recording and transcoding/playout system so that content can be ingested through the creative.space Web Application. The creative.space //DEUS EX server is now the core of the box retailer’s workflow, touching every system and user that accesses content.
If you are looking for a technology partner you can trust to transform your workflow into a well-oiled content creation machine, call 888.519.2021 or email info@creative.space today!
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