Within recent years, we’ve seen a stratospheric rise in consumer demand for video content; consumers now watch over 500 million hours of content on YouTube every day. Reflecting this, organisations have been adopting video within every area of their business strategies. According to Wyzowl, over 91 per cent of marketers consider video as an important tool. There is a significant demand for video and consumers expect high-quality and varied content on every viewing platform.
This huge increase in video consumption has technical difficulties for those within the industry. UK-based independent post production company, The Ark, was challenged by the effects of its own success. Reflecting the increasing popularity and success of digital media, The Ark could see a rise in the volume and complexity of the content being stored in its platform. This coupled with increasing demands for instant access to its archive – both internally and from external stakeholders – meant that it needed to revisit how its media assets were stored and accessed. This was becoming expensive and cumbersome under its existing storage platform.
As well as post production services, part of The Ark’s business is delivery of content creation and marketing services. To provide a professional service to its growing European client base, it needed to manage and present content effectually to enable easy access and to maximise use of the content available. Noting the costly nature of media creation, The Ark identified that an effective storage platform would open up monetisation opportunities within the archives and drive cost efficiencies for both itself and its clients.
However, transferring from its existing storage system had the potential to be challenging. It needed its next storage solution to seamlessly migrate its content to a future-proof platform without disrupting daily use. Needing a smooth transition, The Ark selected media storage specialists, Object Matrix, to meet its objectives.
The challenges
The Ark’s existing object storage provider was becoming expensive to maintain and expand. The media management processes were being hindered by the existing storage, with it not allowing for workers to access and share content freely and quickly due to its lack of automation.
With The Ark priding itself on its quality of service and quick turnaround, it identified that it needed a storage system which could improve business efficiencies; it needed a system which allowed workers to manage content quickly through automated metadata extraction and application integration. Due to the nature of its work, The Ark had lots of content which could easily be lost without the correct tagging processes. This highlighted the need for a storage system which would allow for automated tagging to improve cost-efficiencies and reduce the need for workers to input the information manually. This would also enhance The Ark’s ability to find and repurpose content, resulting in increased opportunities to monetise archived content.
The Ark needed a flexible and secure storage solution that could maintain a high level of functionality. Additionally, it required:
- Migration of content from existing storage system
- Integration with existing media management applications (including API testing)
- Automation of data management
- Fast access to content on new storage system
- Disaster recovery capabilities
- Scalability for potential expansion
Protecting and managing content with MatrixStore
The Ark chose Object Matrix to protect and manage its data content through adopting MatrixStore, the media-focused hybrid Cloud-based object storage platform. MatrixStore presented a scalable and cost-effective solution which incorporated automation and integration into streamline processes.
The Ark wanted to deploy a storage system from a company which offered local support. Object Matrix offered both predictability in terms of cost as well as high-quality support.
Due to Object Matrix specialising in the media industry, The Ark was confident that MatrixStore offered the scalability and flexibility required to grow its services now and in the future. MatrixStore’s future-proof platform (paired with its proven digital content governance) supports multiple media workflows and protocols which met The Ark’s need for an intelligent storage solution.
With assistance from Object Matrix integrator CCK Media, The Ark implemented 1PB of MatrixStore storage and began the migration of content from the existing storage solution. It liaised with The Ark’s existing media application providers to ensure a seamless transition and integration with MatrixStore. This included creating bespoke MAM API integration for CPPS which required API and testing by CPPS. Additionally, Object Matrix changed The Ark’s use of Aspera so that it utilised MatrixStore as opposed to unsecured space. Its implementation saw a smooth transition from the original storage solution.
Peter Watling, sales manager, Object Matrix, said: “The Ark is an extremely innovative and forward-thinking post production company, offering a wide range of services alongside production of long- and short-form content. Its storage was already well set up, with well structured content, so integrating MatrixStore into the workflow was seamless. It has been a great pleasure to work with the fantastic team and see the transformation, and I look forward to working with The Ark for the long-term future.”
Following implementation, The Ark has been able to modernise its workflows due to the platform’s flexibility and integration. Existing content was easily migrated and tagged appropriately to reduce the time spent on media management, allowing The Ark to quickly and easily locate and utilise existing content.
Dan Martin, The Ark CTO, added: “With a huge amount of content being housed in our storage system, we were looking for a cost-effective way to do this whilst keeping the high level of functionality, security and elasticity of object storage. We have been really impressed with MatrixStore, which addressed our needs technically and commercially, by being secure and intuitive whilst being extremely easy to migrate existing content onto. The other big benefit was having local support which was key to our decision-making. MatrixStore applications enable us to quickly search and reuse our content, and now that we have the future-proof platform our business can grow with, we can start to introduce further workflows that include implementing disaster recovery.”
The Ark is planning to implement MatrixStore’s disaster recovery capabilities to safeguard the company from disruption, enabling business continuity in the event of downtime. In the future, The Ark intends to utilise MatrixStore to unify its content from several sites. It is also exploring the option to offer its services to external clients, using Object Matrix’s Vision.
The Ark now has a flexible and integrated object storage solution which has enhanced its ability to create and manage content, as well as maximise monetisation opportunities from its archives. This new and dynamic solution has enhanced its capabilities to deliver the volume of complex content required by its customers to satisfy consumer demand, both now and in the future.
