Al Jazeera picks PRO TECHnology storage solution
Posted: 24 June 2006
PRO TECHnology has signed an agreement with Al Jazeera International, the new 24 hour English language news and current affairs channel headquartered in Doha, to transform the TV station’s video network infrastructure by providing a turnkey SAN (Storage Area Network) solution from Apple.
PRO TECHnology will equip Al Jazeera International with the state-of-the-art Apple Xsan, an enterprise-class SAN solution that permits multiple computers to concurrently access terabytes or even petabytes of storage on Xserve RAID over high-speed Fibre Channel.
The solution will be mainly focused on Apple’s high-performance Xserve RAID storage from ingest and capture to final output, whether working in video and film, editing audio or creating effects and motion graphics.
The feature-rich Xsan will allow Al Jazeera International to digitize with zero dropped frames, flexibly edit content offline, use storage effectively, and set up complex situations quickly, besides permitting them to more easily set up and manage SAN.
Other features of the solution include file-level locking, bandwidth reservation, and user quotas and authentication.
“We are pleased to join hands with a reputed TV station like Al Jazeera, which has caught global attention with its unique reportage of regional and international events,” said Jamal Maraqa, Managing Director, PRO TECHnology.
“In choosing to implement our SAN solution, Al Jazeera has taken the lead in bringing to the Middle East high-end video storage solutions widely in use in major European TV stations.
“With the implementation of Xsan, Al Jazeera can be assured of unmatched reliability and scalability of their video SAN storage. PRO TECHnology is also providing Al Jazeera with additional services in the form of technical support and spare parts for the equipment and redundancy of all systems,” Maraqa said.
By using Fibre Channel multipathing, in which two Fibre Channel cables connect a computer to the SAN, Al Jazeera can potentially achieve throughput of up to 400MBps, perfect for multiple editors working on a video project or a complete cluster that needs fast access to data to ensure each node crunches at full capacity.
Posted by Richard Price, Editor EnergyME.com
Information supplied by companies or PR agencies who are responsible for content. Send press releases to richard@energyme.com |
