SGI has announced that BBC Broadcast will use SGI's InfiniteStorage NAS 3000 and shared filesystem CXFS as the foundation for its tapeless broadcast environment. ATG Broadcast was selected to integrate the hardware.
The system includes 50 terabytes of storage with high-bandwidth capacity from SGI, and is expected to be in use within the next two months. It enables assets to be available for ingest, archive and play-out. All BBC Broadcast content will ultimately go through this system.
The NAS 3000 architecture and filesharing capabilities of CXFS will enable BBC Broadcast to provide a core for activities such as transcoding, aspect ratio conversion and file delivery to and from clients; supply the storage and bandwidth required by concurrent "desktop" browse video users; and build an asset management system to manage the storage layer provided by the project.
Other contributors to the project include a datatape library from ADIC, a HSM from Front Porch Digital and network connectivity by Foundry Networks.
