Calling the storage market "a new frontier for Avid," David Krall, president and chief executive officer, unveiled a new shared-storage server called the Avid Unity ISIS media network that leverages a "distributed-intelligence" architecture with less cabling complexity and hardware components than traditional large-scale servers.
And we're talking large-scale price. It starts at $107,000 for an 8 TB system that won't lose a drive (and all of your hard work), even when dozens of users are accessing the network simultaneously. The new Avid system is based on an Infinitely Scalable Intelligent Storage (ISIS) design that spreads the data that makes up a video clip across the entire series of disk drives. This, says Avid, minimizes bandwidth congestion and lets the system continue operating, even when drives fail. The result is a real -time shared workflow that delivers virtually unlimited storage headroom, fast system resiliency, and seamless workstation connectivity.
Avi-Drome, a post house in The Netherlands, is developing a new business model around the ISIS server. Avi-Drome has entered into a relationship with a major broadcaster in Belgium to store all of the station's media files on an ISIS server at Avi-Drome. The station is connected to Avi-Drome via fiber, allowing graphic artists at the station to utilize material on the server as if it were directly connected to their workstation. The new service will launch in March 2006 and, if successful, Avi-Drome hopes to replicate that model at various locations around the world. Wexler Video, in Burbank,CA, is also considering such a storage rental service.
The ISIS server design employs 16 storage blades (two 250 GB serial ATA drives per blade) contained inside an "ISIS Engine" to share data and balance the collective workflow between entire groups of connected storage drives. This allows someone on the network to be working in Avid Symphony one minute to create a multi-layered effect, then switch to Avid Xpress software to incorporate that effect into a video program. And they do this without ever leaving the desktop.
The Avid Unity ISIS server comes with storage capacity of up to 64 TB per system, connectivity for up to 100 dual -stream (50 Mbps) clients working in real -time over standard Gigabit Ethernet; native compatibility with Ethernet switching technologies (a Cisco Systems Catalyst 4948 Series switch was shown), and the flexibility to hot-swap any storage component, even when moving data around. The Unity ISIS system will scale in 8 TB increments with no limit to system size. As data demands grow, users can connect additional Avid ISIS Engines (using a Cisco Catalyst 4948 Series Ethernet switch), with each new engine increasing the aggregate bandwidth and reliability of the entire system.
The ISIS system balances workloads by replicating and distributing video clips among all components in the system and instantly adapting to traffic and load patterns for all connected clients in real-time. The system includes self -healing drive blades that communicate with one another to automatically adapt and redistribute data in the event of a drive failure. When a failed drive is replaced, data is rebuilt at speeds up to 20 times faster than typical RAID systems, according to Avid.
For more information, visit www.avid.com