Dutch Broadcasting firm refreshing storage

MOUNTAIN VIEW, US: NPO ICT, the IT department of the Dutch Public Broadcasting Agency NPO (Nederlandse Publieke Omroep), has selected Inprove’s Open Storage solution, powered by NexentaStor software, for storing and delivering television programs available via the website of www.uitzendinggemist.nl.

UitzendingGemist (‘MissedBroadcasts’) is now capable of managing data that continues to double annually at a lower cost, says a press release.

UitzendingGemist is one of the most data intensive websites in the Netherlands, with very dense Internet traffic. The website has existed for over 10 years and has approximately 80 terabytes (TB) of video available to Internet users who want to watch previously broadcasted television programs. During an average evening, between 10 and 20,000 people stream data, adding up to over 10 GigaBytes (GB) in capacity.

“Our record is 25GB,” said Wietse Muizelaar, hosting team leader, NPO ICT. “All of this data must be stored and readily available as it continues to grow every day, and in more formats. Think mobile for instance–to manage this environment, a robust and scalable infrastructure is essential. This infrastructure also must be cost effective, as NPO should spend public resources in a prudent way.”

The storage solution NPO ICT was using reached its capacity, so it began looking for new Media Streaming Storage for UitzendingGemist and other websites. Requirements for a new solution included: high availability, scalability to an annual data growth of over 50 percent, competitive costs per TB, low power consumption, and 24x7 first-class support.

After a process that involved multiple vendors, NPO selected the Inprove’s Open Storage solution, based on NexentaStor. “The two deciding factors were performance and price, as the alternative vendors did not compare to Inprove’s performance, and were more expensive per TB. We looked into the total cost of ownership, not just the purchase cost, but also operational elements such as support and power. We have worked with the system for several months now, and uptime is 100 percent so far.”