British Telecom Deploys 980TB MatrixStore From Object Matrix

The British Telecom plc  (BT) platform provides VOD to its broadband customers across the UK.

Content that is ingested from many varied delivery networks is required to be protected and available to be transcoded into any number of formats for future delivery to end customers.

Media asset management layer

Originally the VOD content was only protected in a large LTO tape robot making access to the material slow and cumbersome. BT required a solution that could provide instant access to the content they need to protect and re-purpose whilst requiring little or no administrative management.

Amongst the other requirements to be fulfilled were:

• integrate with existing MAM solutions/systems.
• have the ability to integrate with any future workflow.
• be secure from accidental or malicious deletion.
• be scalable with no down time or management effort.
• be future proof from hardware obsolescence.
• be non-proprietary.

After ruling out the continued use of the LTO platform and finding that other nearline offerings were limited in both scalability and offering future workflow support, MatrixStore from Object Matrix Ltd was selected as the solution.

The Solution and Workflow
MatrixStore acts as a resilient digital preservation repository, complementing the existing production storage and providing guaranteed access to clips as and when required. The existing MAM solution manages the ingest of hi-resolution content into MatrixStore for long term protection. That content is then transcoded and also protected in a MatrixStore vault for future delivery via playout servers or a multitude of other platforms.

The Solution
BT has over 980TB of MatrixStore clustered storage that has grown over the last 3 years. There are 35 MatrixStore nodes in the primary cluster and 6 MatrixStore nodes in the replica (DR) cluster.

Out of the box MatrixStore provides:

• Secure vaults instantly protecting the content on RAID-6 MatrixStore nodes.
• Guaranteed data authenticity coupled with ongoing automated data verification and repair.
• An open API for integration with the existing MAM and future file based workflows.
• A scalable solution that requires little or no management enabling the addition of future storage technologies as and when they become available.
• Compatible in any NLE workflow allowing content to be browsed direct from the nearline platform.
• Migration in place. Content moves automatically to newer storage technology as and when legacy hardware is de-commissioned.

Peter Baker, head of operations, digital media, BT, said: “MatrixStore has been our media archive solution for 3yrs now. The API has allowed us to fully integrate with our wider MAM environment thereby avoiding content management via the traditional file system approach. Replication has allowed us to effortlessly backup our most valued assets, and plug’n’play scaleability has really delivered on its promise to allow us to seamlessly expand to accommodate volumes and meet new archive demands with minimal downtime. System maintenance and support could scarcely be lighter touch, and most critically BT TV media is safe, secure and fully accounted for. In three years we’ve yet to lose a single byte of data.”

“MatrixStore is designed to ensure petabyte of digital content are available online with minimal effort which makes it perfectly suited to video on demand or distribution workflows. By working for several years with BT on the BT TV platform Object Matrix has proven its ability to grow live installations and to incorporate new technology without causing any disruption to service,” said Nick Pearce, co-founder and sales director, Object Matrix.

Effortless and Proven Digital Preservation
Object Matrix sells MatrixStore into regulated industries such as banks (Deutsche Bank AG, Nomura Bank) and utility companies (EDF) where there is an increasing focus on complying with internal and external compliance requirements around data protection authenticity and access. In these industries governance, authenticity and audit trails are required throughout the lifetime of the content from capture to archive. These requirements increasingly being sought in media organisations with file based workflows and are features of MatrixStore that helped BT to make their decision.

Preservation Requirement MatrixStore Solution:

• Retention of data for specific amount of time: Policy enforces that data cannot be deleted before its time. Not even with administrator access.
• Audit logs and log files: Configurable audit log can tracks all operations (administrative & data)
• WORM: Data stored as fixed content cannot be modified.
• Authenticity: Digest calculated when the data is stored acts as a guarantee that the data is bitwise exactly the same when it is read back as when it was originally stored. Periodic validation of the content also ensures this remains the case.
• Security and Privacy: Full network security is employed to stop replay, sniffing, data modification and other attacks. User access rights can be set only giving access to authorised personnel.
• Accessibility: Time to first byte is sub-second, even under heavy load.
• Search ability: Built-in database can support many searches per second across 100’s of millions of database entries. Data entered into the store can be entered with 100’s of keywords to enable web style search of unstructured data.
• DR: Covered on two levels: by replication to a separate cluster and/or by generation of tapes. Data is stored on a single cluster such that 4 disks simultaneously would need to irrevocably fail before data is at risk.
• Different regulations need to be handled: Since each object stored can be given its own policy, the same MatrixStore can be used to handle many differing regulations.
• Ever growing storage capacity is required: Extra storage capacity can be added easily via plug and play. It is possible to add storage technology to the existing storage pool as and when it becomes available providing future proof ability to scale.