5 steps to finding your perfect object storage partner

Perhaps your Editor’s time is taken up by doing backups, or there is only one person on the team who knows where to find your archived content? Or, your Chief Engineer is looking for a solution that is future-proof in scale and workflow? Are the people holding the purse strings not willing to invest unless it generates revenue or savings?

All of these internal challenges don’t help the individuals on the ground, and you find yourself spending more time on these issues, rather than focusing your efforts on other priorities.

It could be that you’re currently using storage solutions such as standalone disk drives, single RAID devices or LTO tape, but managing and accessing your media is time-consuming, and to be honest, your time could be better spent on other tasks.

Shifting to a more modern solution can be daunting, time-consuming, and difficult. Choosing the right storage vendor can streamline the process and help you adapt to a fast-changing industry.

How do you manage data? Perhaps you don’t have a solution at all and your media content is on hard drives stacked up in a dusty old broom cupboard. Not ideal, and certainly not the most secure way to store content that is valuable and irreplaceable.

Maybe you’ve moved all your assets to the cloud, but recent bills for downloads have made you reconsider?

Regardless of the scenario, you have come to the conclusion that now is the right time to invest in a solution that:

• Takes little or no effort to manage
• Can automatically synchronize content with cloud buckets
• Enables you, your staff, and customers to find and share content with ease

All these desires point to implementing an object storage solution – but which one? There are so many! How do you find the right one for you?

We would recommend that you first determine your exact requirements vs. your current position.

Think about what you need from a storage solution that benefits both you and your organization. What do you need that will improve operational efficiency, be cost effective, and streamline your internal processes to ensure your time is productive? Does it need to integrate with other systems?

How much storage capacity per month will you require, and how much content will you need to access in that time? 

And finally, have you considered what your budget is?

Producers want to move quickly, and have been known to move from one project to the next within a matter of days. If you have teams working remotely across various geographical locations who need to be able to access their media archive quickly and in real time, not having the right object storage solution in place could be impactful on campaign and live dates.

Another area to consider is auditing access. Are you aware of who is currently accessing your archived media, and what happens if something is accidentally deleted or removed? 

Audited access ensures your content is protected and only accessed by those with permission to do so. You wouldn’t want that top-secret project going live too early, in error! 

The ability to track every movement of your media assets, and also to be alerted in the event of an accidental slip up means you are in control at all times.

We understand that your media assets are of utmost value to you and your organization. How secure are your assets and sensitive information now? Did you know, the average ransomware payment in 2021 increased by 82% year over year to $570,000?

Never compromise on data security! It’s not about if you’ll be attacked, but when. Media makes for unique challenges to the solution set, so having a partner that understands media workflows and cyber security demands is necessary.

If you have any centralized data storage or computer resource, like Network Attached Storage (NAS), you should be concerned about CyberCrime. If you have people accessing those platforms from remote locations then you should be very concerned indeed about CyberCrime.

Everybody needs “access resilience,” so in addition to having somewhere to store your media archive, you should also consider having the ability to backup your work in progress.

Consider implementing business continuity and recovery strategies to help assess internal and external risk and how you would mitigate this.

In today’s world, media organizations keep their assets digitally and more often than not in a centralized system. There is an advantage for management and delivery of data, however, this can create the risk for potential disasters. Loss of assets could be down to a natural disaster, virus, human error, or a malicious action. We would advise that this should not be ignored.

Does your organization need to monetize or exploit their archives? Do you require instant and predictable access to your content and metadata from anywhere at any time?

If your answer is yes to both of these questions, then in order to achieve these goals, your content and metadata needs to be curated, portable and stored in non-proprietary formats so it can be exploited, shared, re-used, or moved to new platforms – without being tied in.

If you are using LTO to access your content, this can be inefficient, time-consuming, and operationally detrimental to your organization, which is why so many organizations are looking to replace those platforms with a more modern alternative.

About Object Matrix

Object Matrix is the award-winning software company that pioneered object storage and the modernisation of media archives. It exists to enable global collaboration, increase operational efficiencies and empower creativity through deployment of MatrixStore, the on-prem, hybrid and cloud storage platform. Their unified deployment approach ensures content spans on-prem and cloud storage whilst their focus on the media industry gives them a deep understanding of the challenges organisations face when protecting, processing and sharing video content. Customers include: NBC Universal, TV Globo, Warner Bros. Discovery, MSG, ATP and the BBC, to name but a few!