Hyper-convergence is here to stay

With an unprecedented number of people at home and seeking entertainment, the appetite for visual content has never been higher. Studios, on-demand services and TV Networks have had to quickly come up with ways to meet this large demand, made all the more difficult when the industry that is creating the content itself, is rapidly having to adapt it’s own business practices. Studios who are able to quickly adjust infrastructure, keep up with productivity and meet content demands, are able to stay competitive. A hyper-converged solution is an approach creative media businesses can take to stay agile and keep infrastructure costs lower.

When it comes to media data storage, studios and broadcasters have historically depended on on-premises hardware, supplied by the major data appliance vendors. Aside from a few exceptions, the majority of these data appliance vendors have not yet included cloud-based solutions into their offerings to clients. For these vendors, that makes good sense. Any data that is moved off their on-premise systems and over to cloud instances is lost business. To guarantee long-lasting profitability, many appliance vendors lock clients into contracts for a number of years, charging extra to clients for maintenance or to move their own data when the contract period ends.

This limits the flexibility of media creation companies as they grow as a business. Once locked-in to one of these contracts, the only available solution for upscaling their storage needs is to add more capacity to the existing appliances. This in-turn can be very limiting if different business requirements arise, such as; workloads delivered from the cloud, which is precisely the scenario that many studios are working in today.

That’s where hyper-converged infrastructures that leverage software-defined technology comes into play. Having a software-defined solution built into the storage layer removes the limitations associated with hardware appliances. It gives studios the ability to choose which vendors to work with, when, and if needed. This subsequently brings down prices for companies and empowers them with ultimate control over their data.

Integrated remote workflows for better user experience

Many studios today are working with remote teams, running virtual workstations that need connectivity to the studio. Operating within one integrated system guarantees workflows like this can be automated, and therefore work more efficiently. Software that offers an open API or is written in common coding languages such as Python makes it a lot easier for studios and broadcasters to have the solution integrated within their existing system. And, this level of operation is only truly made possible by having in place a software-defined solution within the storage layer.

Cost-cutting solution

If the only way studios can grow the capacity of their storage strategy is by buying another tray, blade or disk from their appliance vendor, naturally, the party in control of the price of that solution won’t be studios themselves. Having a hyper-converged infrastructure gives studios the freedom to choose where to grow their capabilities – may it be on-premise or in the cloud. They can spend on whatever is the biggest, fastest, best solution in the market at that point. Naturally, playing a ‘free market’ means there is competition amongst hardware manufacturers to own the biggest market share consequently reducing prices. If a company is tethered to a vendor, there is no competition, and therefore they set the price, and the ongoing costs of managing that system.

That’s not to say that on-premises hardware has become obsolete, as cloud isn’t the solution for all data challenges. There are still huge costs associated with cloud usage – costs not always accounted for beforehand which can be especially difficult for planning project budgets and bidding for work. Studios need to take a considered approach to how they design their storage infrastructure, and hyper-convergence may be the answer…

Vendors or companies that offer software-defined solutions to data management should have a consultative approach with their clients, prescribing the attributes of the technology that needs to be purchased for the software that will sit on, whether that’s hardware appliance or cloud. But ultimately, the customer can choose at any point in time which vendors they want to buy from. That might be based on new offerings that have come out which give better performance or cost, or even new entrants in the marketplace. It could be a number of different things. Regardless, the software works as the technology able to link all workflows and applications, moving data between on-premise and the cloud intelligently. And, more importantly, giving studios the flexibility to expand as and when they wish.

Take media agencies for example, with large amounts of archive data. If the storage solution in place is a legacy system such as Storage Area Network (SAN), then it is very likely that additional hardware will be required for the backup. To avoid having a complicated stack of on-premise assets to manage and pay for – only to move old data around so it is kept safe – some companies will have deployed a hybrid storage model, where different cloud instances are built alongside SAN. Hyper-converged infrastructure removes the complexity and overhead of data movement by automatically tiering within the same namespace across cloud, file system, tape and on-premise devices into the ‘right cost’ resource, according to value and usage as your work teams and business needs demand.