Omneon MediaGrid is the first content storage system that plays an active part in media workflows. More than just high-performance shared storage; Omneon MediaGrid directly supports media production applications and actively performs media processing functions on stored content. Consolidate content, reduce administration and optimize workflows with Omneon MediaGrid.
The Omneon MediaGrid active storage system combines clustered storage with grid computing, using multiple intelligent, interconnected-yet-independent nodes to create a system that scales in manageable increments of capacity, bandwidth and media-processing power. Designed specifically for digital media workflows, Omneon MediaGrid integrates easily with workflow and content management applications to deliver a complete platform solution.
In addition to incredible bandwidth performance and storage scalability, Omneon MediaGrid can also serve as a grid-processing engine for processor-intensive media processing applications. For both applications that simply need to read, write or access data to those that take advantage of the integrated processing, Omneon MediaGrid provides a highly optimized platform that delivers workflow breakthroughs not possible from any other generic storage product.
The modular, grid-based design of Omneon MediaGrid delivers highly scalable storage capacity. By aggregating the capacity of many individual ContentServer storage units all connected over a standard network infrastructure, the total system capacity of Omneon MediaGrid can scale from a few terabytes to multiple petabytes within a single file system. Simply add more ContentServers to the system, and bandwidth, capacity and processing power will grow linearly.
Omneon MediaGrid is designed to deliver high bandwidth to multiple clients requiring fast access to material for production or repurposing activities. Omneon MediaGrid eliminates bottlenecks by allowing clients to pull the content they need directly from multiple ContentServers, taking advantage of the aggregate performance of multiple data sources simultaneously. Through the use of an optimized file system driver, clients can tune their storage access performance to match the requirements of the media application they are using.
The storage industry has continued to push RAID and its variations to deliver system reliability and data protection. While RAID delivers data protection, it suffers a performance penalty during recovery procedures—particularly with large disk drives.
Omneon MediaGrid uses the concept of Dynamic Data Redundancy (DDR): once content is written to the system, it is immediately replicated one or more times. DDR places multiple active copies of the content in multiple locations, which increases accessibility to every file. Multiple copies ensure complete redundancy and speed data recovery in the event of a disk or ContentServer failure.
For comparison, the content on a failed 500 GB drive will typically be replicated within Omneon MediaGrid in minutes. Traditional RAID systems might take many hours to rebuild lost data, and even enhanced RAID-based systems take several hours under comparable configurations.
The design of Omneon MediaGrid uses a highly distributed and virtualized file system to present a single global namespace to all clients regardless of how many ContentServers are part of the system. Administrators never have to re-stripe or reconfigure the file system when new storage capacity and bandwidth are added; they simply add new ContentServers and new capacity and bandwidth are automatically incorporated. System configuration and management tools provide intuitive GUIs for administrators to use when setting policies and monitoring system performance. This includes setting directory- and user-based quotas, replication factors, security policies and more.
Many storage vendors consider broadcast and digital media just one of several vertical segments that they try to support with a general-purpose platform. Unlike these other vendors, Omneon is a proven and experienced leader in broadcast and production markets, with a deep understanding of media-specific requirements.
Omneon MediaGrid adds further value by acting as a distributed computing platform for media processing applications that can run directly within the system. In addition to its own ProXchange™ transcode application, Omneon works with third parties that are developing applications in areas such as transcoding, up/down/cross conversion, graphics rendering and quality control. Omneon MediaGrid customers who deploy these applications realize several benefits:
Omneon MediaGrid is based on a distributed design that effectively eliminates bottlenecks by allowing different functions to be performed by different components of the system. By separating major functions of a storage system into distinct components, each optimized for a specific function, Omneon MediaGrid is able to deliver levels of performance, resiliency and manageability that far surpass traditional storage systems. Omneon MediaGrid is based on the following core components:
ContentDirectors manage and direct the overall operation of Omneon MediaGrid by presenting a single virtual file system to clients who need to interact with the system. During read or write operations, ContentDirectors provide clients with pointers to target ContentServers. This approach actively load-balances the available storage and bandwidth of the system, and eliminates bandwidth bottlenecks commonly found in traditional NAS or clustered NAS storage systems.
ContentServers are the actual storage devices within Omneon MediaGrid and provide high-bandwidth access to content. Each ContentServer contributes storage capacity, network bandwidth and processing power for file serving and the Omneon MediaGrid Processing Framework. Different types of ContentServers, optimized for either bandwidth or capacity, are available to meet a client's bandwidth vs. storage capacity requirements. Additional design flexibility is enabled by support for multiple disk-drive sizes on each ContentServer model and the ability to create systems with a mix of these models.
| Model Name | Model Number | Unit Size/Capacity | Processor | Memory | Network Connectivity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ContentServer | CSS 1024 | 1RU height 4 disk drives |
1 x Intel Pentium 4 | 4 GB | 2 x 1GbE ports |
| ContentServer | CSS 2122 | 2RU height 12 disk drives |
1 x Quad-core Xeon | 4 GB | 2 x 1GbE ports |
Omneon SystemManager is a software application that handles system management functions such as configuration, connectivity, security and performance management for all Omneon hardware platforms and application servers. SystemManager allows users to manage and monitor network topology, the "state" of the network, device names, end-to-end connections, bandwidth and other related network configuration tasks.
ContentManager is an easy-to-use Windows-based application for setting, reviewing and changing attributes on files, directories and user permissions within Omneon MediaGrid. Administrators can set file or directory level "replication factors" for data protection and to increase client-access bandwidth. User and group permissions are established by creating Access Control Lists (ACLs) that can be applied both to human users and automated systems. ContentManager also provides a comprehensive logging feature for troubleshooting system issues. Activity logs record all information related to file and user operations.
