-- Tiered Storage, Pizza and the TTFB
We often get asked how best to describe where MatrixStore object storage sits in the hierarchy of tiered storage or to explain tiered storage itself. To do this I sometimes turn to silly food analogies to accomplish this.
One way to consider tiered storage is think about the desire to eat pizza and how quickly you can get it in your mouth. By desire I mean it's the day after your second fasting day of the week and you would eat cardboard right now just to get something inside you. Anyway, here goes with an explanation:
Tier 1 Pizza
If I have a delicious hot pizza in front of me, on my plate, the time for me to stuff that pizza in my mouth is sub 1 second. This is known as the Time To First Bite (TTFB). Super fast, super satisfying. But my plate is only so big any excess pizza will go stale if I leave it out too long. So I need to park some leftover Pizza somewhere.
Nearline Pizza
Over in the fridge, I know there is some cold pizza from last night and also some fresh pizza I can cook up pretty quickly. It's the 2nd tier of pizza storage that will protect my pizza for longer but might take slightly longer to go and get it.
Frozen Pizza
Now that the fridge is quickly filling up with the most popular pizzas I need to push some of the less popular ones, anything with pineapple on it, down a storage tier. After all no-one in their right mind would eat savoury pizza with fruit on it but the legal department say we need to keep these heinous creations around just in case. So the pizza goes in the freezer and I know for sure I am going to wait a little while before I can actually get to eat it.
Public Cloud Pizza
The ultimate pizza. Someone else, somewhere, makes your pizza and delivers it to your door. This can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours to arrive, depending on your Pizza SLA. Trust in this pizza is still an issue for some as its integrity could be in question since you are not entirely 100% sure that no-one else has licked your pizza before delivered to your doorstep. Whilst the CFO loved the idea of PaaS (Pizza as a Service), the cost of getting the pizza delivered regularly is a whole lot more than initially thought.
Apply this analogy to the Media industry (Post-Production, VOD, Digitisation, Masters Library) Tier1 Storage Shared editing storage. Guaranteed streams of access to your data. It's like having the pizza in front of you.
Tier 2 - Nearline Storage MatrixStore object storage is your nearline for re-purposing content and putting archived clips or finished masters at your fingertips. Nearline platforms really do need to be disk based in order to guarantee sub-second Time to First Byte (TTFB). From terabytes to multiple petabytes this tier of storage offers scale, security, metadata manipulation and business rules support (Data retention, DR and Business Continuity etc.).
Tier 3 - Cold Storage (Boom Boom) Your frozen pizza is your LTO or ODA. It has a longer TTFB given it may take a while to find the cartridge you need. Perfect platforms for sending content to clients or putting archived legacy content into a deep archive for insurance or to satisfy internal policy purposes.
Alternative Tier 3 - Public Cloud Storage Pizza delivery is just like public' cloud, someone else is looking after your data and is responsible for delivering it to you when you ask for it. Again it could take a while to get hold of and you tend to have to pay to get your own data back. Many organisations are looking at this OPEX model but even the cheapest of public clouds become prohibitively expensive when it comes to retrieving multiple terabytes of content a week. What media company needs to do that?
Note: Private and hybrid cloud platforms make a lot more sense for organisations looking for Storage as a Service offering both in terms of commercial flexibility and tighter technical integration. Get in touch to find out how Object Matrix can help.
Most organisations will implement a mixture of all of the above based on the requirements placed on the data. If you do need frequent access to content and you need secure, audited workflows then having a copy on the nearline tier is a must.
Right that's enough food analogies! I'm starving and it's a fasting day!
Pass the lettuce please.
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...
-- Tiered Storage, Pizza and the TTFB 
