“Scality RING allows us to install monitoring agents in the nodes, providing flexibility for logging into monitoring tools, metrics capture, system monitoring by SNMP and more. For operational efficiency, this is a significant advantage.” 

Takumi Tsujishita  
KCS Server & DataStore division,
KADOKAWA Connected

Scality enables seamless data streaming for a leading video-sharing platform in Japan

KADOKAWA Connected Inc. — an IT subsidiary of Japanese media conglomerate KADOKAWA Group — is on a mission to achieve digital transformation and reduce costs associated with the group’s information systems and service infrastructure.

Their sights were set on deploying a highly performant, stable and scalable storage system for live-stream data from niconico Live, one of Japan’s largest video-sharing platforms.

The Challenge

Because video streaming is the core function of niconico Live, in terms of fault tolerance, KADOKAWA Connected thought it risky to depend on a single storage system. That’s why they were using vendor’s appliances and IA server-based SDS in dual configuration for redundancy.

The vendor’s appliances system needed to be replaced for several reasons: It wasn’t a scale-out type, it had instances of low performance with increased storage capacity, and it required a significant number of labor hours to be spent at the time of failure so operational costs remained high. 

The Solution

KADOKAWA Connected had three main requirements for their new storage system: stable performance, high availability and scalability, as well as lower total cost of ownership — and Scality RING has delivered.

• With more people at home due to the government declaring a state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic, requests for time-shifted video feeds during peak hours reached levels 6 to 7 times higher than normal. Scality RING alone was sufficient to cope with the increased demand for streaming.
• Support provided by Scality’s Japan-based staff, in Japanese and local time, as well as Scality RING’s seamless integration into KADOKAWA Connected’s monitoring system proved to be great advantages.
• Deploying Scality RING slashed the man-hours spent on operation and maintenance, essentially saving the cost and effort of one full-time employee.

“By going with Scality RING, we managed to build a storage system with high stability and scalability at a low cost.” 

Toshiya Kato
Head of KCS and KCS Server & DataStore division
KADOKAWA Connected