The Boston Celtics’ IT infrastructure
is looking to scale out digital video storage. Digital video is the Celtics’ largest
percentage of data. Their audio, photographs and graphics take up space but not
as much. The team is moving from scaling up storage to scale out. This is due
to them having an expected growth rate of at least 20 terabytes per year. The Celtics are currently using EMC’s VNX
system for storage. This hybrid data storage array features powerful multicore
optimization and expands to 3,000 terabytes max capacity. The Celtics’ also use
an older Clariion AX4 for disk based backups and archives. The team has a lot
of analytics to do with EMC to determine a scaling out solution.
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Scale-Out |
The Celtics’ CTO (Chief technology
officer) Jay Wessland wants to really make a major upgrade instead of using
minor changes of scaling up to accommodate their storage needs. These minor
changes are expensive so it would be smart to get a more sustainable system for
their growing digital video storage needs. The team saves game video, interview
video and event video that is used on the Celtics’ website, YouTube and social
media. These parts of video are used mainly to give access to the fans. The
basketball/business side also has a different location of similar video stored
separately.
This side of the business uses
videos for game tape on future opponents and self-scouting. They also use it in
scouting whether its future NBA prospects or team needs in free agency. The
Celtics’ goal is to have their digital video storage scaled out into a cloud so
that it can be retrieved when needed and not taking up all of their internal
storage. The retrieval cost of the cloud can be costly but that is not the CTO
concern given that it will rarely be retrieved. Cloud storage will need to be a
part of their new upgrade solution but with a partnership with EMC, the Celtics’
won’t have a problem bringing together a better resolution.
I actually wrote about this same topic. It was interesting to me because I didn't know how NBA teams stored their media and data information. Its also interesting to see how they plan to approach the mass video data storage.
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