Releases

posted on 14 April 2008 16:12

SAN JOSE, CA--(MARKET WIRE)--Apr 14, 2008 -- As the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference kicked off today, Quantum Corp. (NYSE:QTM - News) -- the leading global specialist in backup, recovery and archive -- highlighted its StorNext® software as a scalable and cost-effective solution for helping the media and entertainment industry manage the explosive growth of digital assets.

As evidence of this growth, research conducted by data storage consulting firm Coughlin Associates, Inc., found that the industry utilized an unprecedented amount of storage hardware -- more than 700 petabytes -- in 2007(¹). In addition, the firm predicted that this number will skyrocket to a startling 2.4 exabytes by 2012.

This digital explosion reflects the evolution that has occurred in media and entertainment over the last several years. Historically, industry professionals have had to manually retrieve and move video tapes through the production process, physically circulating them from creation, post-production, ingest, playout and archive, also known as the "sneaker-net." Not only was this time-consuming and expensive, but it also posed a greater risk of data loss.

Today, users are increasingly moving to digital, file-based workflows, where the content is housed in a storage area network (SAN) or shared pool of disk, from which numerous departments can quickly access it. While clearly beneficial, this evolution, coupled with the booming demand for HD content, has actually created another challenge -- it has nearly quadrupled the storage needed to retain, manage and archive the digital assets.

In addition to enabling high speed data sharing, Quantum's StorNext software addresses this challenge through StorNext Storage Manager(TM), which transparently manages and protects the digital assets. It does so by expanding storage pools into multi-tier archives, automatically moving data between different disk and tape resources to reduce cost and protect the content. Data location is also virtualized so that any file can easily be accessed for re-use, even if it resides on tape. Finally, Storage Manager features infinite scaling with support for millions of files and petabytes of data, which enables media and entertainment professionals to cost-effectively retain and manage their growing data repositories without sacrificing or complicating access to content.

"Quantum's StorNext Storage Manager operates flawlessly, allowing a startup network like ours, with a library worth more than $32 million and holding over 3,000 hours of content, to scale and grow faster than we could have imagined," said Jamie Peebles, vice president of engineering for Retirement Living TV. "Our lifeblood is being able to take content and repurpose it at a moment's notice. It used to take us days to locate the content we needed. Now, with Storage Manager, we can retrieve content in minutes, thus giving us a competitive advantage over other networks."

Quantum Presentation at 2008 Creative Storage Conference

Quantum also announced today that Ingo Fuchs, product marketing manager for StorNext, will be speaking at the 2008 Creative Storage Conference, held in conjunction with NAB on Tuesday, April 15. In a session titled, "Content Delivery and Archiving Digital Storage," Fuchs will discuss how storage technologies can help the media and entertainment industry address the explosion in digital content and improve archiving. In addition, Quantum will exhibit at NAB, April 14-17 (booth number SL13805).

About Quantum

Quantum Corp. (NYSE:QTM - News) is the leading global storage company specializing in backup, recovery and archive. Combining focused expertise, customer-driven innovation, and platform independence, Quantum provides a comprehensive, integrated range of disk, tape, and software solutions supported by a world-class sales and service organization. As a long-standing and trusted partner, the company works closely with a broad network of resellers, OEMs and other suppliers to meet customers' evolving data protection needs. Quantum Corp., 1650 Technology Drive, Suite 800, San Jose, CA 95110, (408) 944-4000, www.quantum.com.

^{(1) "2007 Entertainment Content Creation and Digital Storage Report," Coughlin Associates, Inc.}

^{[Formatted by Majid Soltani.]}