creative.space is on-premise, managed storage designed to provide creatives the performance they need without the technical burden of maintaining large lT systems. It was created by post pros for post pros, so it recognizes that M&E companies have unique needs. To that end, they offer a line of products that can grow and change depending on workflow.

To find out more, we reached out to Tim Anderson, CEO and CTO of creative.space and parent company DigitalGlue, with some questions about the company’s offerings, as well storage trends for the Media and Entertainment industry.

How has storage for M&E changed in the last few years? What do you think is behind that change?
The biggest change is that storage is getting cheaper. A chief reason for that is that the big three (Google, Facebook, Amazon) have invested a lot of R&D money into building cost-effective storage to meet the projected increase in online video content, which projections are saying will account for 79% of global internet traffic by 2020.

The issue for traditional storage vendors is that technology is moving faster than their refresh cycles. It takes a long time to go through testing and then systems have to be stocked and supported for up to a decade after the initial release. The main thing to understand with this product cycle is that when you buy the latest hardware release, it is probably already using old technology. Our contract manufacturer also builds storage servers for Facebook, Google and Amazon. These companies are doing amazing things with AI and are always pushing the limits of computing. This is the hardware we focused on in our product offering. Since we only provide our solution as a managed monthly service, we have the freedom to include the latest and greatest technology.

To put this into perspective, our new hybrid //DEUS EX, which we just launched, gives over 6GB/s of aggregate performance with only four 4, 8 or 16TB NF1 cards on top of 288TB of Helium-filled HDD storage. As of today, this system is available for a fixed monthly rate of $5,995, $3,995 or $2,995, on a one, two or three-year contract with support included.

Is that why you launched creative.space? How does it help those working in post, VFX, etc.?
Before creative.space was even an idea, we were trying to sell enterprise shared storage to a rapidly changing M&E market. It was a tough sell. These systems had to scale really big to even attempt to handle the throughput needed for what were quickly becoming entry-level workflows. It was hard to justify why the highest-end systems in existence couldn't handle the 4K footage that affordable prosumer cameras were producing. For us, creative.space is about providing fast, reliable storage that actually works with the formats artists are expected to work with today, without breaking the bank.

creative.space is provided as a managed service, not a lease or a purchase. It is billed monthly, and the price decreases based upon the length of the agreement. The process begins with an initial consultation, either over the phone or in person, so that we can understand a client’s current and future needs. An onsite visit allows us to analyze your existing network, workstations and workflow, while taking into consideration any budget constraints. Then we provide a written suggested design, data migration plan, and list of all the needed hardware and software required for a successful solution.

We come to a financial agreement and then sign a contract. Next, we order all necessary components, pre-integrate and test at our location. Then we install at your location(s), test performance and train your creatives. Onsite spares are included, and we monitor the storage server(s) 24/7. Typically, we will notify our users of a problem before they are even aware of it.

How do you see the "state of the state" for M&E storage technology at this point?
Honestly, it's probably the best and worst time in history to be a storage vendor. Storage is becoming a commodity, which has created some significant issues for both vendors and artists. Vendors with large infrastructures are finding it hard to maintain the margins necessary to support their customers, and it's becoming a race to the bottom. Even though prices are falling, the knowledge needed to setup and support a storage system isn't getting any cheaper. It takes a lot to turn a high-performance piece of hardware into a reliable workhorse for the unpredictable day-to-day needs of video teams.

As far as trends go, we see a coming plateau where exponential growth in technology becomes irrelevant because artists will find that they don't need higher technology capabilities than what they already have access to. What's not changing is the need for support. I think the last year has already shown that creatives are beginning to take a step back and re-evaluate the physical and psychological consequences of the demanding conditions they are working under. We hope that by providing our unique combination of hardware, software and wetware (a.k.a. a team of industry veterans), we can help our customers get some much-needed breathing room.

So what exactly is your approach to support?
For us, it's all about the support. We've designed a business model and incentive structure that encourages customers to keep a continuous dialogue open to prevent them from the unexpected roadblocks that come out of not understanding the complexities of networked storage. The truth is that there isn't a cheat sheet to follow for how to properly adapt your storage for every possible workflow you might do. What we are hoping to help our customers avoid is a situation where they have accepted a project that their system can't handle, and they end up losing a client and revenue because of it.

Our approach to support includes ongoing conversations where we discuss workarounds clients can do with their current system, or we give them options to scale up to meet the client's demands before they commit to a new project. Our On-Premise Managed Storage pricing model makes upgrading easy, with the cost being spread out into monthly payments.

How do you make sure you're creating both hardware and software that meet the needs of working pros? Are you interacting with users to make sure you’re on the right path?
We deal with a lot of engineering speak, and that really doesn't matter to the customer. Technology has to follow creative, so we try to help our users feel comfortable communicating in a way that makes the most sense to them. Once we understand their intentions, we can take it from there.

We've spent a long time on our initial release thinking about how real-world users would use our storage. So we have designed a setup wizard to help customers find the right configuration for their needs. To reduce the costs and maintenance normally associated with user management, we built an LDAP server into every system.

From here, it's really about our Early Adopters telling us how we can make their day-to-day lives easier. It's the little things that really matter, and the only way for us to figure out what those things are is to have a direct dialogue with our users.

From your experience and based on your research, how do M&E pros buy storage? And what would you recommend based on workflows that often ebb and flow?
Everyone is different, so I will try to break it down between direct-attached storage and networked storage. The majority of the industry is still using direct-attached drives for most things because many teams work production to production, and creatives simply don't have any option to use a drive other than the one provided by the production. If you buy your production drives at a big box store, then expect to pay that back in labor hours.

The time to look at networked storage is when the workflow mentioned above begins to cost you too much money. Maybe you've lost a client to an unexpected drive failure. Perhaps you have too many drives now to keep up with, or you are just tired of all the headaches. Whatever the reason, you have to somehow put together the money to pay for a network storage solution that could cost anywhere from $50K to $1 million.

We built creative.space to allow creatives to get the local storage they need that can expand as they grow. We understand that predicting future work one, two or three years into the future can be difficult, that's why our pricing structure is built with creatives' changing needs in mind. Need more storage or a different solution? We can easily modify the contract based upon your evolving business.