High Availability DDP solutions with Project Caching

A/V FS is famous for Project Caching. It gives the best of both worlds: SSD performance with hard disk capacity. M & E organizes media in projects. For each project a folder or folder structure is created. Per project it can be decided where and how to store, cache or clear cached data without disturbing the workflow. This can be automated or controlled manually.

Without Project Caching the systems below would be either all SSDs or hard disks. SSD systems are small sized, are A/V format independent and have a low energy footprint while hard disk systems have a large size, are A/V format dependent and are energy hungry.

With Project Caching the SSD performance is guaranteed and the hard disk capacity can be filled in within certain boundaries by using the highest capacity to number ratio. That way a DDP system with a proper balance between performance, size, price and energy footprint can be offered.

The broadcaster needed to renew a 300TB of usable capacity Isilon system.
The video format was XDCAM HD (50 Mbps) with 13 editors, 16 live ingest channels and 3 file ingest channels.
Client connections are 1GbE and the connection between storage and switch 10GbE.

We offer a High Availability DDP system with Project Cache to balance performance, size and energy footprint with an affordable price.

The Project Cache consisted of raid 5 protected usable capacity of 11.5 TB.
The hard disk part has 320TB raid6 protected usable capacity.
The system comes with two years warranty, a spare 20TB hard disk, sliding arms and front bezels.

Component breakdown is as follows:

1 x Dual HA DDPHead with 2 x dual port 10/25GbE/SFP28 cards
1 x 24 bay HA DS1024, 4U with 2 x dual 10/25GbE/SFP28 ports
1 x SAS SSD4, 3.84TB as 11.5TBraid 5 protected usable Project Cache
2 x HD8, 20TB packs
1 x HD4, 20TB pack

The hard disks are organized as two Raid 6 sets 10x 20TB drives, usable capacity 320TB.

As workflow we proposed to ingest to the Project Cache with automatic copy through to the hard disks.
We also suggest using a folder or folder structure per project. That is the preferred way to use the Project Cache.

At 50Mbit/s bandwidth and 16+3 = 19 ingest streams the capacity requirement per hour is 456GB. So 11500GB Cache can hold 25 hours of each of these 19 streams.

When files are no longer in the cache they are automatically taking from the spindles.
The internal management of the DDP takes care of this and it goes unnoticed for operators and applications.

See the picture for the 5U system.

Some 10 clients are to be connected with 25GbE, 15 with 10GbE and 35 with 2.5 GbE. Mac computers used are M2 and M4. Formats range from DPX, JPEG, Apple ProRes 4444, 2k and 4K growing to 6 and 8K. Applications used are Avid Media Composer, Pro Tools, DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Creative Suite.

Further information gives answers to the requirements in the tender document.

1.The DDPs natively supports Avid bin locking and project sharing. Due to the A/V FS file system the DDP works perfectly with DaVinci Resolve, Pro Tools and Adobe Creative Suite. Underneath the A/V FS file system you can create (sub) folders structures and you can assign volume properties to (sub) folders. Folders with volume properties are called folder volumes. Depending on user/access rights they can appear on the desktop as volumes. Regarding Avid again: each folder volume can hold an Avid MediaFiles directory. Because this is within the A/V FS file system this also means that when a project (folder) is deleted its released capacity automatically becomes available to all. Capacity per project can be controlled via quota. These are main advantages in comparison with Avid Nexis.

2.Quota management on the DDP is per folder volume (project folder which has been given volume properties). When different users work on the same project (for example one doing audio and one doing video and one doing effects you can underneath the project folder make sub folder volumes called for example project audio, project video, project effects and assign quota to each.

3. With the DDP admin can decide which folders and folder volumes should appear upon logon and can also decide which R, W R or R/W no delete access rights a user has. Any project type can be divided up in folder subfolder, subfolder structures with access rights and quota as you see fit.

4. One can expect security issues regarding content that is ingested, especially when it coming via Internet, USB sticks, cartridges etc. DDPs use Linux under the hood and it comes with the latest security updates. DDPs are expected to be on a closed network and there is no need for the DDP to be directly on Internet. We do not deliver the DDP with a virus scanner installed. It would dramatically slow down the required performance and virus scanners cannot normally cope with larger A/V files (limit is around 32GB). Also a virus scanner will not touch files with postfixes such as .exe, .vbs, .cmd, .iso, ips1 and other system file types. To prevent getting malware on the DDP (preventing data corruption, ransom ware or theft of data) the last ring of defense are the desktops connected to the DDP. Apart from desktop measures to secure DDP access (HTTPS, two factor authentication) the DDP comes standard with an audit function, which can be activated. The audit function can be used real time to monitor a specific situation or off line to monitor all user actions.

To secure the ingest via internet Ardis Technologies can offer in addition a Mover/Checker DDP system to prevent malware to enter the company. The Mover/Checker works alongside a preferred virus scanner. In short the Checker checks files against a list of allowed postfixes and it quarantines files with .exe, .cmd, .msi and others. Files, which are allowed after checking are moved to a designated DDP part.

The high availability post production system consists of the Dual HA DDPHead and a GS3024, 4U with 3 x SAS SSD8, 3.84 packs, raid 5 protected usable capacity of 80,4TB Project Cache connected to two JB3016, 3U hard disks arrays with 4 x HD8, 22TB packs, configured as 4 x raid 6 sets of 8 drives, usable capacity: 528TB. Bandwidth on read is 22GB/s and on write 8GB/s.
As workflow we suggest to ingest to the Project Cache with automatic copy through to the hard disks. We also suggest using a folder (sub) folder structure per project. That is the best way to use the Project Cache. We now make two assumptions: 1. Suppose each of the users connected does their own project. So 56 users means 56 projects. 2. Suppose we allow each user an hour of Project Cache space. The 7 x 25GbE clients each doing 4K (1,5 GB/s) then each has a Project folder with quota set to 6TB so total 42TB. Each of the 10GbE users has a project folder with quota set to 3,2TB so total: 32TB. Each of the 35 users is assigned a project quota of 200GB, which is total 7TB. Adding these totals is: 42 + 32 + 7 = 81TB. The automatic copy through from cache to spindles internally within the DDP proceeds with 4TB/hour given the number of hard disks. When a project is no longer in the cache it is automatically taken from the hard disks.

So 100 clients each with bandwidth of 300MB/s, so total 30GB/s.
The capacity required was 7.68PB. The applications are FCX, Adobe Premiere Pro, AE, Photoshop and some Maya and Houdini.
Apart from this limited information we also knew that the competition offered an all hard disk system consisting of 30 nodes of 2U and 3 MDCs, 63HE and that it needed to be high availability.

Because of Project Caching we offered a DDP system against less then 50 % of the price compared to the competing system.

The HA DDP system consists of:
1. x Dual HA DDPHead with 2 x dual 100GbE/QSFP28 ports.
2. Large Project Cache consisting of 1 x GS5024,2U with 16 x 30.72 NVME SSDs raid 5 protected usable Project Cache of 430 TB.

3. 7.680PB of hard disks capacity (usable 6.336PB) with 4 x JB3090)

System bandwidth is up to 40GB/s and has 2 x 2 x dual 100GbE/QSFP28 ports on the GS and Dual HA DDPHead. The total rackspace is: 19HE.

The workflow we suggest is as follows:

1. Material is ingested into the cache with automatic copy through to the hard disks.

2. All 100 desktops edit/grade etc. from to the cache.

3. When material is no longer on the cache it is automatically taken from the hard disks.

This HA DDP system was offered confirm a tender requirements such as: high availability , NVME SSDs, high bandwidth on read and write and capacity. The applications themselves nor the workflow was explained. We offered an all NVME SSD system and a setup using Project Caching consisting of NVME SSDs and hard disks. The dealer decided to offer this solution to the customer to limit the costs agains an all dual NVME SSD setup.

SSD/HD HA DDP system with Project Caching:
Dual HA DDPHead with 2x dual 100GbE/QSFP28 ports, dual controller GS4024 with 2x dual 100GbE/QSFP28 ports, 2U with 737TB NVME SSD raid protected Project Cache capacity and JB3090 with 2,16PB raid protected hard disks capacity
Bandwidth on read: 25GB/s. Bandwdith on write: 15GB/s. Including two year hardware and software warranty ex VAT, installation and transport costs.