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Flash memory server for on demand television
Ralf Jurrien : May 8th 2007 - 18:08 CET
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 Flash memory server for on-demand television : SeaChange International will unveil its flash memory solution for on-demand television at The Cable Show. The MediaServer Flash Streamer is a 100-percent flash memory-based solution that completely decouples on-demand streaming from disk-based content storage, empowering television operators to push their streaming resources to the network edge and deploy centralized content libraries. “With flash technology, operators can bring much more content to the network edge to more subscribers without having to bring disk storage with it, which means more content and higher quality of service at a much lower total cost of ownership,” said Bang Chang, director of server products, SeaChange.
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 Flash memory server
SeaChange’s patented MediaCluster technology first set the standard for video-on-demand cost-per-stream by clustering inexpensive disk servers to far outperform monolithic enterprise servers. Today, SeaChange’s Media-Server Flash Streamer is also the industry’s only completely non-volatile flash memory streaming solution (no spinning disks) to take full advantage of SeaChange’s widely proven MediaCluster server architecture. Without costly mirroring, Media-Cluster stripes content files across flash modules in a server and across servers in an InfiniBand connected cluster, ensuring service fault-resilience and cost-efficient scalability since only one copy of a video is ever required at a server location.
SeaChange MediaServer flash streamer
Available in the third quarter of 2007, a single SeaChange MediaServer Flash Streamer (two rack units high) provides 300 hours of storage and 1,000 streams. It perfects a new solution for:
• Diskless edge streaming at the network edge for the most popular content in the “long tail”, thereby enabling centralized storage and storage management at headends.
• Time-shifted TV reliability: In contrast to DRAM solutions, the Flash Streamer retains real-time ingested content in spite of server failures or maintenance downtime.
• Seamless stream expansion allowing operators to boost streaming capacity without adding disk storage. SeaChange’s new Axiom Core 4.0 automatically distributes “hot” content to Flash Streamers to provide additional streaming capacity.
SeaChange MediaCluster
“Once again with MediaCluster, SeaChange is in the ideal position to help the industry re-establish on-demand television cost-performance,” said Chang. “We are very pleased that Flash Streamer will debut at the same low price-per-stream that our customers already enjoy today.” MediaCluster technology is also the key to extending flash memory’s life expectancy by a factor of five to at least 10 years. Whereas content “write” hot spots would dramatically reduce life expectancy in any other architecture, SeaChange’s MediaCluster eliminates write hot spots by perfectly load-balancing content “writes” across all flash modules in a server and across all servers in a cluster.
SeaChange Axiom Core 4.0
Next week, SeaChange will also introduce its Axiom Core 4.0, the latest generation on-demand management software that optimizes the performance of disk-based servers as well as memory resources such as the Flash Streamer. Taking its cues from the experience of delivering billions of on-demand streams in more than 100 diverse settings, the new Axiom Core 4.0 is an open solution that automates television’s rapidly expanding core services and seamlessly manages the next generation applications including network PVR and broadband PC/mobile delivery and subscriber place-shifting. Television operators worldwide run their on-demand services on SeaChange software and servers to the tune of billions of streams delivered annually. Visit SeaChange at The Cable Show (Mandalay Bay Convention Ctr., Las Vegas, May 7-9) for product demonstrations.
About SeaChange
SeaChange International, Inc. is the leading provider of end-to-end and best-of-breed solutions for the world’s growing on-demand and IPTV industry. Its powerful open video on demand and advertising software and scalable hardware enable broadband and broadcast operators to provide new on-demand services and to gain greater efficiencies in advertising and content delivery. With its Emmy Award-winning and patented technology, thousands of SeaChange deployments are helping television companies to streamline operations, expand services and increase revenues.
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