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Scality shifts video archive into hyperscale, boosting transfer speeds tenfold

about About RTL II

A key player in Europe's reality TV and docu-series market, German TV station RTL II generates hundreds of terabytes of movie and TV programming each year through in-house production and high-quality content licensing. Its goal: editing and curating that content for delivery to its audience over broadcast and streaming channels in near-real-time.

 

With its active video archive growing 200 terabytes per year, RTL II's storage was too slow to scale — upload times restricted editing work to no later than six hours before scheduled broadcast, and archived content wasn't easily accessible.

 

HPE ProLiant servers with Scality RING gave RTL II petabyte-level scalability and tenfold faster video transfers — a typical 40 GB movie that took 60–70 minutes now transfers in just 6.5 minutes.

Scality-casestudy-RTLII

flag The Challenge

Slow uploads locked editors out six hours before broadcast
With its active video archive growing 200 terabytes per year, RTL II's storage was too slow to scale — upload times restricted editing work to no later than six hours before scheduled broadcast, and archived content wasn't easily accessible.

To succeed in meeting its objective, the company knew it would need to modify its content storage infrastructure. RTL II's VP of IT & Services Reinhard Görtner realized their system was not fast enough, nor could it scale to reach this target.

Using the existing system, editors faced a constant uphill battle to finalize their broadcast. Upload times were slow, restricting editing work to no later than six hours before the scheduled broadcast time. Any last-minute change to information just could not make it. Because the system did not scale well, archived content was not easily accessible, further complicating editing work.

With its active video archive growing 200 terabytes per year, RTL II needed a more efficient way to scale, and the new system had to be fast and furious. Upload speeds had to increase by orders of magnitude, and the system had to scale easily to nearly any size. In addition, it needed to be completely reliable — and affordable to boot.

tick Solution

One storage platform for everything, on HPE ProLiant and Scality RING

By deploying HPE ProLiant SL4540 Gen8 servers with Scality RING object storage software, the station gained petabyte-level scalability while accelerating video transfer speeds tenfold.

Our ultimate goal is having one storage platform for everything. That's what Scality and ProLiant SL4540 offer. They bring efficiency, performance and virtually limitless scalability.

Reinhard Görtner

Vice President IT & Services, RTL II

Deployed in a geographically diverse structure, the RING also virtually guarantees that the TV station will never miss a broadcast.

list The Results

40 GB transfers cut from 60–70 minutes to 6.5 — and access keeps getting faster

Reinhard and his team managed to deliver on all requirements. With the Scality RING deployed, content growth is no longer a problem. Editing is possible in near real-time, with upload times dramatically reduced. A typical 40 GB movie that used to take 60–70 minutes to transfer using the previous archive now takes just 6.5 minutes. RTL II's multi-petabyte content archive is not only accessible in full for the editors, access speed is getting faster as more content is uploaded.

RTL II is now ready for even more reality. Programming is always current, and editors can actually find time for a well-deserved break.

I would recommend Scality because the system is very stable, and the experience we have with the support is that it's very quick, friendly, and absolutely qualified.

Hans-Josef Lauer

IT Operations Manager, RTL II

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