-- 2020 Storage Predictions: Invisible Storage
When it comes to media archives most people want to store lots, never have to manage it, and certainly never have to worry about data migration. Oh, and also to pay very little in the meantime.
So in making my 2020 storage predictions I've focused on that rather than NVMe, computational storage, storage class management and intent based storage management. To be quite honest, I love those technical aspects; but I don't think it's a day to day concern.
Articles about NVMe belong to the storage geeks whereas Invisible Storage is for those who just want something that works. Invisible Storage is for the many not the few (if they even know it), and Invisible Storage is the theme of Object Matrix's 2020 storage predictions.
--
2020: Three Good News Storage Trends
-- Prediction 1. Invisible Storage: Services
Ready-to-roll services are becoming mainstream and will develop out quickly in 2020. Suppliers who provide just one component will become for very bespoke workflows only.
Multiple services are now available to not just be able to store media assets into faceless buckets, but also open those assets up for usage. These workflows go beyond safekeeping of data, but also include workflows such as search, editing, previewing, collaboration, etc. It's a bright future for individual post house, broadcaster or practically anyone with a media workflow: workflows including storage that just work.
And, whilst larger broadcasters are trying to build more complex and bespoke service based workflows that include on-prem and cloud services, many other media companies are signing up to off-the-shelf service solutions made ready-to-roll for the Creative industry.
Suppliers: Object Matrix, DropBox, Adobe; and more.
-- Prediction 2. Invisible Storage: Hybrid Storage
What people like about the cloud low management easy expansion data services opex pricing plus hybrid needs to extend to on-prem as well. The good news is the adoption of hybrid is accelerating and will continue to in 2020.
The cloud often provides an invisible storage service, but, can: ease of management ease of storage expansion seamless data services ease of never having to migrate data again ability to automatically copy data from location to location be extended to on-prem?
The good news is that in 2020 an increasing number of solutions are available that provide some if not all of these attributes.
For instance most HSM tools can now migrate from on-prem to cloud and back again, global namespace software can virtualise the asset's location if the global namespace's interfaces are used to access the assets . And, in the case of on-prem object storage, a full range of invisible storage services can be achieved right where you need to access use your assets.
In the year 2020, the year of invisible storage, we predict a great rise in Creatives seeking solutions that provide cloud like simplicity but with the speed of on-prem access, the pricing of on-prem and the ability to seamlessly link into hybrid workflows.
Suppliers: HSM providers, Global namespace providers, object storage providers.
-- Prediction 3. The Slow Migration from LTO to Continue
LTO continues to hold many media archives that could simply be better searched, accessed, reused and montised if they were on faster access storage. AI can now better analyse assets. Organisations the world over are realising this and that's why the move away from LTO is accelerating.
I've got nothing against LTO as a cheap medium to store assets that will never be looked at again but everything against LTO if the assets need to be read-back even semi-regularly or if the assets need to be analysed, searched, or generally kept for a long period of time (since then they will need to go through migration processes). Speaking recently to an owner of a major media archive with 1.5m film assets on tape, even being able to get that film digitised and then to run image recognition and speech-to-text is a major headache and hurdle. The last thing they want to do is to put those assets back into a system that will become outdated every few years, or into a system that makes it hard to analyse and re-analyse the assets.
--
2020: Three Worrying Storage Trends
-- Prediction 1: Cloud Service Ransomware
An increased level of noise from media companies who have made bad cloud investments due to unexpectedly high and ongoing costs and due to the difficulty of exit.
At a recent technical forum for the industry a TV broadcaster CTO lamented that cloud services are becoming both expensive to commence due to set up fees , expensive to use due to egress / download fees, and almost impossible to exit from due to restrictive contracts. In short, cloud services can quickly become ransomware, holding your assets but with non-stop fees.
Of course, a cloud service that is time-share accessed can be an extremely efficient. Paying just for when you use a cloud service allows the service provider to split the costs, e.g., for CPU time, amongst many customers. However, a storage service is a 24/7 usage requirement and comes with a significant overhead for egress. The benefits are much more limited.
Worryingly, many large cloud providers only offer sensible pricing with restrictive contracts that effectively lock the customer into that service for years to come. In a changing world, lock-in is a very dangerous strategy.
-- Prediction 2: Global Namespace and Digital Asset Management Vendor lock-in
Keeping media assets is valueless if you can't find them. Many software vendors create very proprietary, difficult to share and difficult to migrate from databases, and thus create vendor lock-in. There appears to be little industry move towards open standards that would stop t
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
-- 2020 Storage Predictions: Invisible Storage
