Public Funding for Ovation Data Services, Inc.

MOSS is a twelve-month project to research and develop object-based ‘blob’ storage systems that are optimised for the network-based processing, distribution and archiving of very large collections of media files. The project will create a new kind of Functional Object Storage, based on Open Source technologies and standards. It will demonstrate a protptype, working with exemplary applications, and publish a White Paper mapping Functional Object Storage to media industry workflows. Combining object-based storage and functional programming for professional media data, across networks and in the Cloud, will improve data resilience, permanence and network delivery, and resolve problems of versioning. The project leader is a SME solutions provider (Ovation Data Services), working with a large creative media facilities company (Smoke & Mirrors), and a research group at Imperial College with a strong track record in distributed computing systems and functional programming. Aftre the project, Ovation expects to bring the results to market in a new generation of storage products and services.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

OpenShare is an eighteen-month project to research and develop new methods of storing, accessing and working collaboratively with media in the Cloud. The aim is to make it possible for creative companies to work together securely with large volumes of high-resolution media, and for third parties to develop new applications that will work across public or private Clouds. The outcome will be a ‘Platform as a Service’ approach that can be tailored to meet the needs of companies of any size, allowing them to work together safely and cost-effectively on projects ranging from small video productions to large advertising campaigns, product placement projects or feature movies. The project will use Open Source technologies to produce middleware. It will publish the specification and API to encourage the development of new applications, and demonstrate a prototype PaaS with an on-line showcase of examples of its trial use.

The VSV Pipeline Project aims to develop a resolution-independent format, Vector Streaming Video (VSV), as an alternative to sampled (pixel-based) images and as an alternative to compression for full motion digital media, together with a processing pipeline that can be used to convert large volumes of digital media into different formats. The VSV video technology will offer significant efficiencies, particularly in respect to the scaling of higher resolution media and in format size at all resolutions.

Retention and Access Services in the Supply Chain (RASSC) aims to transform current approaches to data access and retention in data intensive supply chains. Our targets are the aerospace and the renewable energy industries, where a service-based approach provides a principled way to monetise information about the product over its life. Both third-party infrastructure suppliers and partners in the user-industry supply chain with will benefit from a blueprint for delivering new data access and retention services to the whole community. The benefits are short-term operational cost savings, improved data sharing in supply chains, and long-term mitigation of ‘cost of data loss’ (e.g. not having data easily available to meet regulatory compliance). In this initial investigation, our target is barriers to adoption, with work done including (a) economic analysis of the underpinning business model; (b) investigation of how to integrate access services into existing company infrastructure; (c) policies needed for data security, safety, auditability and integrity; and (d) building and evaluating a demonstration system to gain insight into technical and operational challenges.

The POSTMARK Project aims to provide a new generation of network services that combine data transfer, data storage and data processing - all with guaranteed Quality of Service - and matched to the performance requirements of data intensive applications.?? POSTMARK is based on Sohonet, which provides network connectivity to over 200 companies in the media industry and beyond, delivering fixed latency paths within an uncontended non-blocking network, with near real-time provisioning of bandwidth up to 10GBit/sec. ?POSTMARK users can provide their own storage and processing resources into the network, which are then aggregated and delivered to other network users (comparable to domestic solar/wind energy generation contributed back to the National Grid). Doing this at the network services level allows a single and simple access point, encourages closer collaboration between network operators and users, enables new business models, and differentiates POSTMARK from conventional cloud approaches that fail to meet the needs of these industries. ?With POSTMARK enabling more competitive costs and the ability to satisfy combined network / storage / processing requirements quickly and securely, post-production houses will be able to attract a greater variety of work, and focus on developing their creative skills, which are the most saleable aspect of their business - and where they are best placed to innovate in their industry.

Awaiting Public Summary

This project brings together demanding archive users, leading storage systems developers and world class academics to address the challenges posed by the emerging digital archiving market. The requirements of this market are for low-cost highly scalable systems capable of storing data with guarantees of persistence and accessibility of data. The project will generate storage management systems to allow the archivist both to configure storage technology using archiving terminology and to understand the risks and benefits of digital archives. With both Audio-Visual and seismic data archive partners we will develop management systems that are applicable to the generic archiving industry. Alongside the management tools we will develop new algorithms to approach the storage of data in the most appropriate way for the characteristics of that data, thus enabling the archivist to trade service quality against costs to achieve their required cost/quality of service metrics.