In order to expand its hosted video storage and delivery platform to offer an enterprise scale video supply chain as a cloud service T3Media (formerly Thought Equity Motion) worked with IBMBusiness Partner Re-Store to deploy LTO Ultrium 5 tape with IBMLinear Tape File System at several global locations. For more information on Storage - Tape System T Series, visit http://ibm.co/ONeH7m. Visit http://bit.ly/KWh5Dx to 'Follow' the official Twitter handle of IBM India Smarter Computing.

1. IBM Systems and Technology Media and entertainment
Case Study
T3Media delivers video
library management
Using IBM LTO 5 tape and LTFS for federated
archive and cloud infrastructure
Headquartered in Denver, T3Media (formerly Thought Equity Motion)
Overview works with more than 400 rights holders globally, including some of the
world’s largest media companies.
The need
T3Media (formerly Thought Equity
The company increases the value of video content through its advanced
Motion) is expanding its hosted video
storage and delivery platform to offer an technology platform and licensing services. The company delivers large
enterprise scale video supply chain as a scale archive management and “smart content” metadata tools as a cloud
cloud service. service, providing greater control with reduced cost and complexity.
The solution Through its web platform and global sales force, the company licenses
Worked with IBM Business Partner sports, news, entertainment, editorial, and creative content to the world’s
Re-Store to deploy LTO Ultrium 5 tape leading producers in advertising, film, television, publishing, and interac-
with IBM Linear Tape File System™ at
tive media. This includes footage collections from BBC Motion Gallery,
several global locations; the data growth
rate on LTO 5 is approaching 100 TB per Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, National Geographic,
month. The New York Times, and the NCAA.
The benefit
Lower ancillary costs for data storage; Aiming to reduce its clients’ costs while improving service levels and
greater transparency and reduced process efficiencies, T3Media is extending its hosted video platform as
complexity in licensing make costs a service offering. Mark Lemmons, CTO at T3Media, explains: “Our
more predictable; interoperable tape
format opens up new business
vision has been to create a lights-out solution for our library owners,
opportunities with clients. giving them a rich set of tools to manage their content archives and to
monetize them using our web platform. Simultaneously, we are continu-
ing to digitize our existing content libraries, adding breadth and depth
to existing content libraries, as well as new libraries. Our challenge was to
increase the reach of our platform through federation; LTO 5 tape with
Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is playing an important role in helping
us achieve that goal.”
New format for greater reach
The broadcast and media industries have grown accustomed to standards-
based interoperability for video recordings. A video tape recorded in
New York can be shipped to Tokyo and played back without difficulty
on standard hardware. However, when files are digitized and stored in
large hierarchical storage infrastructures, compatibility issues emerge.

2. IBM Systems and Technology Media and entertainment
Case Study
“Interoperability is very important in this industry and with the digital
migration the industry has recently taken some steps backwards in this
“When we were looking at regard, but LTFS is a refreshing step forward,” says Lemmons. “In the
extending the reach of past, having a ‘federated archive’ [locally accessible] of digital content was
our platform, we saw a simply cost prohibitive for some of our clients. When we were looking at
extending the reach of our platform, we saw a clear opportunity to team
clear opportunity to team with IBM and take advantage of its LTO 5 and LTFS technologies.”
with IBM and take
LTFS is a self-describing media format—effectively, a file system that
advantage of its LTO 5 is embedded in the cartridge itself—bringing a new level of portability
and LTFS technologies.” and interoperability to open systems tape storage. It enables files to be
dragged and dropped to and from cartridges, reduces complexity in data
—Mark Lemmons, CTO, T3Media management, and accelerates access to data.
“LTFS makes LTO 5 an easily readable media format,” says Lemmons.
“For clients that want a local archive of their content, either for disaster
protection or to accelerate access, that’s now an economically viable
option. It’s also something that we’re helping them to deploy.”
T3Media worked with IBM Business Partner Re-Store to deploy the
new LTO 5 solution, and is continuing to build it out across its two major
data centers in Laramie, Wyoming, as well as in London, Amsterdam and
Tokyo. The current growth rate for storage on LTO 5 at T3Media is
approaching 100 TB per month. All of this growth is new digital content,
either newly supplied as digital files by content owners or freshly digitized
by T3Media from video tape.
Future possibilities
As T3Media continues to extend the reach of its footage platform, the
company is looking to benefit from IBM solutions for cloud computing
and analytics.
Lemmons explains, “While we had solid IT infrastructure, and technical
capabilities in-house, we recognized that IBM could help us achieve
greater reach, in the sense of being able to meet local demands faster.
The IBM global cloud and LTFS could potentially make that significantly
faster than we could currently do it.”
He adds, “We’re a little further along the road when it comes to analytics.
The goal here is to help our clients understand the changing value of
their holdings and the most appropriate way to manage them. This will
include brand sentiment analysis, which can rapidly become very compli-
cated. For example, if a particular actor hits the big time, can our content
owners immediately spot that they have footage of a TV show in which
he was a child 30 years ago? How do we manage the metadata down to
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3. IBM Systems and Technology Media and entertainment
Case Study
that level of detail? How much metadata can we afford to keep? This
feeds into considerations around the format in which you store the
Solution components
content, the resolution of the digital files, the ownership and rights,
Hardware and so on. The extremely rapid growth in digital media is making the
• IBM System Storage® TS3200 Tape
metadata challenge ever more complex. We see clear opportunities for
Library with LTO 5
using IBM analytics tools to help us cut through that complexity and
Software help our clients minimize costs and maximize value.”
• IBM Linear Tape File System™
Transforming storage
With LTO 5 tape and LTFS technology, T3Media has an open, interop-
“LTFS is delivering erable, low-cost option for the long-term storage of digital video assets.
“LTO 5 and LTFS significantly reduce the ancillary costs around stor-
transformational cost age,” says Lemmons. “This is a real game-changer from IBM: We can
savings, and it’s also just buy the library, the drives and the tapes, and we can very accurately
making it easier to determine my future per-TB costs. By contrast, the licensing model in a
traditional HSM solution is incredibly complex, so you can get hit with
expand, because our large unexpected costs. LTFS is delivering transformational cost savings,
costs are predictable. and it’s also making it easier to expand, because our costs are predictable.
This is a genuine competitive advantage.”
This is a genuine
competitive advantage.” In addition to cutting storage costs and providing greater transparency
for T3Media, the IBM technologies are opening up new business
—Mark Lemmons, CTO, T3Media development opportunities. “We can now meet the interoperability
needs of our clients at low cost, using a federated archive on LTFS,”
says Lemmons. “This is an exciting opportunity for us, because it makes
a local archive practical and affordable for many more of our clients,
not just those with highly developed IT organizations.”
He concludes, “We are deploying LTO 5 and LTFS everywhere we can
plug it in and deploying it on behalf of our clients. We are enthusiastic
about this technology, and can see it becoming the dominant storage
technology for our platform.”
For more information
Contact your IBM marketing representative or IBM Business Partner, or
visit the following website: ibm.com/storage/tape
To learn more about LTO 5 and LTFS, please visit:
ibm.com/systems/storage/tape/ltfs
For more information about Re-Store, visit www.Re-Store.net
To learn more about T3Media, visit the following website:
www.t3media.com
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