Media and entertainment professionals have long debated how and where cloud services best fit in their workflows. Archive was initially seen as the most natural fit. But end-to-end cloud workflows and cloud-based production were viewed with skepticism due to the network bandwidth required to edit full resolution content. Now, as more organizations lean into REMI workflows, and new cloud-oriented creative tools enable real-time content production, the cloud is playing a role at every step of creative workflows.
Of course, it’s one thing to talk about real-time production in the cloud and it’s another thing to show how the cloud has transformed an actual workflow from end-to-end. But that’s exactly what the Philadelphia Eagles media team did by building a streamlined work-from-anywhere solution with cloud storage and cloud-delivered asset management. The best part was that rolling out the new cloud workflow was just as painless as it was transformative for their business.
We went from frequent LTO crashes and long restore times to near-instant access for every stored clip.
—Stacy Kelleher, Director of Production, Philadelphia Eagles
Archive availability sidelines production efforts
The Eagles were using a portfolio of different storage systems to store petabytes of content with different availability for each tier. The best they could hope for when restoring clips from LTO, for example, was half real-time. So, a three hour clip might take an hour and half to restore—and that’s if the LTO system was working at all. It became so problematic that they stopped archiving content to LTO altogether, opting to max out their SAN to ensure fast access.
The desire for faster file-sharing led the business requirements for overhauling their storage infrastructure. They needed to:
- Consolidate their storage infrastructure.
- Improve remote access faster for sharing content internally or even monetizing it outside the organization.
- Improve the reliability of their backup and archive solution.
But migrating data and setting up a new system is no small feat.
Migration can’t run down the clock
Anyone who’s ever done a legacy migration knows moving to a new system is a quagmire. You can’t tell IT: You need to stop syncs and backups for three weeks while we do a migration.
—Ryan Lakey, Principal Lead, Solutions, CHESA
There’s a reason folks in the media and entertainment space dread a migration. It’s slow. It’s semi-painful. And, everything has to port over correctly.
The Eagles approached their migration in the off season. They needed some flexibility to consolidate their multiple SANs, stadium production operations, and LTO system into something that helped them fly higher.
They consolidated the data into one single tier with a Quantum QSX on site for nearline storage and shifted hundreds of terabytes from their SAN and LTO system to Backblaze as their off-site storage for backup and archive.
Cloud MAM for the win
With storage sorted, the Eagles then integrated Mimir, a video collaboration and production platform that includes production asset management, archive, and object-store integration, to keep everything organized and on time. Whenever a file is uploaded to Mimir, it’s automatically stored in Backblaze B2 via Mimir’s file indexer system Kelda. This covered the game day action—their production team had fast access to recently recorded content, providing flexibility to work from home after those late night games.
Getting our sponsored, highest-performing content out quickly drives more views and boosts revenue, so efficiency on game day is critical. Our newly streamlined workflows ensure our editors can deliver while the content is still relevant and engaging.
—Stacy Kelleher, Director of Production, Philadelphia Eagles
The final score
The new system empowers their production team by giving them instant access and fast workflows so they can work without slowdowns. Kelleher noted that restoring a clip is nearly instant.
They have the ability to share links directly from Mimir to users outside the organization for things like pre-season broadcasts, which comes in handy especially when those users don’t want, need, or have the equipment to download the entire broadcast file. Stacy can just copy and paste a Mimir link into an email, and outside agencies or users can watch entire games at speed.
Finally, they freed up IT staff time spent managing all that tape and old hardware, not to mention physical space. It all added up to a big win for the IT team, the franchise, and the fans.
Now I can easily share entire broadcasts by copying and sharing a link from our MAM. No need for FTP downloads or uploading to other platforms. It’s fast, seamless, and ensures everyone can view the content without issues.
—Stacy Kelleher, Director of Production, Philadelphia Eagles
