Solution Brief: Creating Avid Project Archives

Transcription

1 Solution Brief: Creating Avid Project Archives Marquis Project Parking running on a XenData Archive Server provides Fast and Reliable Archiving to LTO or Sony Optical Disc Archive Cartridges Summary Avid Media Composer and Avid ISIS online storage are top industry choices for professional video editing. This solution allows you to easily manage your valuable media assets while reducing capital expenditure on additional edit storage. By running Marquis Project Parking on a XenData Archive Server, you can analyse all your Avid projects and media to understand which projects are using up most space and take action to transfer, delete or archive to reliable longterm storage. Users can create project archives based upon bin selection, move projects between tiers of storage or transfer to different locations. After archiving and transferring media offline - selected Projects or Bins can be restored and merged with the original media back online. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Marquis-XenData Solution 3. XenData Digital Archives 4. Contact Information Copyright 2015 XenData Limited. All rights reserved. XenData is a registered trademark of XenData Limited Last updated: December 14, 2015

2 1. Introduction Project Parking safely moves complete Avid Projects, including not only the sequence edits, effects and project settings but also every media referenced by any project bin, archiving all the media and metadata in a project. MD5 checks and routines are used to ensure the copied data is bit for bit identical to the original. A XenData Archive Server manages disk cache and LTO or Sony Optical Disc Archive (ODA) libraries to create a digital archive on a Windows platform with a straight forward NAS architecture and a standard file/folder interface. XenData virtualizes the LTO or ODA archive, appearing locally as a single logical drive letter which is shared over the network. When combined with a XenData Archive, Marquis Project Parking provides a reliable tool to liberate space on shared storage by archiving complete Avid Projects to low-cost LTO or ODA storage. The complete archived Avid projects may be easily restored directly from Marquis Project Parking when needed. The tight integration between these two products provides multiple benefits to edit professionals: Reduced Costs. The combined solution frees up space on high cost shared storage, like Avid ISIS, by safely archiving complete projects to low-cost LTO or ODA storage. Safe and Reliable Archiving. When archiving Avid projects, checksums verify copied files and a readable report gives confidence that the archive is complete and accurate. Seamless Integration; Easy to Use. The straightforward integration between Project Parking and XenData makes it easy to use, configure, and manage. Archive and restore operations are performed directly from Marquis Project Parking. Project Parking has been certified to run on XenData Server systems which are fully compatible with Avid ISIS storage. Applications include reworking or re-versioning, creating disaster recovery or backup files and distributing projects between systems and remote locations. The portable nature of parked projects makes them ideal candidates to support business continuity and inter-site workflows. This document describes how LTO or ODA archives managed by a XenData Archive Server may be used to safely archive and restore complete and accurate Avid Projects using Marquis Project Parking. 2. Marquis XenData Solution Using the combined Marquis-XenData solution, complete and accurate Avid projects can be archived to LTO or ODA cartridges by simply transferring the project to the XenData archive volume. The archive maintains the original folder structure for all the Avid media and the Project information. LTO or ODA cartridges may be exported from the library and held offline. If they are required for restoring a project to the shared edit storage, Project Parking will identify which cartridges must be imported back into the library. This means that a large robotic library is not required in many cases, as an archive with a small library effectively provides an unlimited capacity. System Architecture The diagram on the next page depicts a typical installation in an Avid environment using Project Parking running on a XenData Archive Server managing an LTO tape library or a Sony Optical Disc Archive library. The system includes the following elements: Avid Edit Workstations. Workstations run the Avid editing suite, Avid Media Composer. Shared Storage. Avid workstations use shared storage as their primary editing disk. Edit workstations connect to the shared storage either directly or over an Ethernet network. Creating Avid Project Archives 2

3 LTO or ODA Archive System. The XenData Archive system runs Marquis Project Parking and XenData6 Server software on a Windows machine. The system has to have network access to the Avid storage, shared or private. The XenData system is connected directly via SAS or FC to one or more LTO or ODA robotic libraries. A user sitting at either a Mac or Windows client computer logs onto the XenData archive server via a remote desktop connection and runs Project Parking. When archiving or restoring a project, the data flow is directly between the shared edit storage (typically ISIS) and the archive server. This provides fast transfers and means that there is no significant load placed on a client computer. Consequently, an editor can continue working while archiving to or restoring from LTO or ODA is being performed in the background. Analyse and Manage the Edit Storage with Project Parking Project Parking includes the ability to perform an analysis on the edit storage to compare the Avid projects and media so that you can understand which projects are using most space. Project Parking can also identify unused or duplicate media which can be deleted or archived. Archiving and Restoring Avid Projects using Project Parking Archive and restore operations are performed by simply selecting the desired project in the Marquis Project Parking application. Archiving is performed by selecting the project to archive and clicking on the Archive button in Project Parking. Select which bins to include in the archive, XenData as the archive location and press Start. To restore a project, go to the Archive and Restore tab in Project Parking and select the project and version to restore. If the project has files that are offline, the cartridges to import into the library will be identified. The progress of the archive or restore operation will be available under the Activity tab. Creating Avid Project Archives 3

4 Schedule Actions Both Project Archives and Storage analysis can be scheduled to be processed at set times, either daily, weekly or monthly and at the most convenient times. 3. XenData Digital Archives XenData virtualizes the contents of all managed LTO or ODA cartridges and the disk cache in a file/folder structure. Benefits include the following: Supports Multiple Simultaneous Applications. Create multiple LTO cartridge groups and use for different applications. For example combine Marquis Project Parking and a simple file-folder archive - all with one XenData system. Fast Archiving and Restores. Files are written at RAID speed. The system does not wait for LTO or ODA cartridges to be mounted. The system restores a queue of files in the shortest possible time. The restore requests are processed in an order that minimizes unnecessary tape or optical disc movement. Built-In Data Protection. The system will automatically create extra backup copies of LTO cartridges for offsite retention. Industry Standard File Security. The archive server integrates fully with the Microsoft Windows security model based on Active Directory. Manages Unlimited Externalized Cartridges. The system manages any number of externalized cartridges, providing an unlimited total capacity. There are no license fees for externalized capacity. Scales to Multiple Petabytes of Near-line Capacity. Scales to support multiple enterprise-class robotic libraries from a wide range of manufacturers. Depending on the performance and capacity requirements, Project Parking may be combined with different XenData systems, including those based on the SX-10 Archive Appliance, the SX-250 Archive Server or an SX-520 Series Archive Server, as show below. SX-10 Archive Appliance Cost effective 1U rack mount appliance Server class hardware with 32 GB RAM and four core Xeon processor Windows 7 64 bit, Professional Edition Includes 4 TB disk cache Includes two 1 GbE network connections Ideal for use with one or two LTO external drives or a small robotic LTO library. Creating Avid Project Archives 4

5 SX-250 Archive Server Cost effective 1U rack mount server Server class hardware with 32 GB RAM and six core Xeon processor Windows Server 2012 R2, Essentials Edition Includes 6 TB disk cache Spare PCIe slot allows addition of dual port 10 GbE card or FC card for SAN connection Ideal for managing a robotic LTO or Sony ODS-L30M library with up to two drives. SX-550 Series Archive Servers 2U rack mount server with up to 12 Xeon cores Windows Server 2012 R2 Includes RAID cache that scales to 100+ TB Scales to support Sony Optical Disc Archive (ODA) robotic libraries and 10+ petabyte LTO libraries. Server cluster running Windows Server 2012 R2 is also available for high availability. 4. Contact Information XenData Phone: (USA), (UK) Website: Marquis Phone: (USA), (UK) info@marquisbroadcast.com Website: Creating Avid Project Archives 5