Survey of Broadcast Professionals Shows Growing Use of Hybrid-Cloud Storage and AI/ML Tools to Manage Media

300-plus NAB attendees name metadata-based search as leading solution for finding and retrieving media assets.

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 08, 2018 — Cloudian, the innovation leader in enterprise object storage systems, today announced that a survey of broadcast professionals revealed that 78 percent plan to employ hybrid cloud technologies – a combination of cloud-based and on-premises storage – to more quickly manage media archives. To help index, find and retrieve media, 80 percent plan to employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to enrich metadata. The survey also found that 51 percent of tape users plan to move away from tape media.

The survey, conducted by Cloudian during this year’s NAB show, held April 7 – 12 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, was based on more than 300 in-person interviews.

Key results from the survey include the following:

Interest in AI and machine-learning tools with metadata capabilities for media retrieval is growing
Post-production professionals are frustrated with today’s media management solutions, with 73 percent of respondents reporting that finding and/or retrieving media is a primary storage challenge. Fifty-five percent said that media management is more time-consuming than it was three years ago, indicating a need for improved search processes. As a result, 80 percent of respondents are considering tools that employ AI and/or ML technology to help tag or label media, pointing to a strong interest in storage solutions that embed rich metadata tags and incorporate metadata-based search tools.

Use of hybrid cloud storage is increasing, driving the need for cloud-compatible on-premises storage solutions
Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they expect to use hybrid cloud storage in the next three years, up from just 16 percent who use it today, indicating a growing need for storage solutions with easy-to-use cloud integration. On the other hand, respondents foresee a decline in the exclusive use of public cloud storage. Seventeen percent report storing media entirely in the cloud today; just nine percent said they will be cloud-only three years from now.

Tape is being displaced, driving the need for scalable disk storage solutions
Disk-based solutions are the dominant archival storage media; 53 percent of respondents said hard drives are their preferred storage medium, while 32 percent use tape for their archival storage. However, 51 percent of tape users said they plan to move away from tape within the next three years.

“These results point to a dramatic transition now underway, as broadcast professionals seek solutions that make it faster and easier to monetize their media,” said Jon Toor, CMO of Cloudian. “The days of write-once, read-never storage are over. Today, post-production teams access their archives more frequently, leverage media assets across multiple platforms and implement hybrid cloud architectures. All of these factors drive the need for platforms such as Cloudian’s easy-to-search, cloud-integrated media storage.”

For an infographic explaining key findings of the survey, click here.

Read the related blog post here.

About Cloudian

Cloudian turns information into insight with an infinitely scalable platform that consolidates, manages and protects enterprise data. Cloudian’s on-prem data management solutions bring cloud technology and economics to the data center with uncompromising data durability, intuitive management tools, and the industry’s most compatible S3 API. Cloudian and its ecosystem partners help Global 1000 customers simplify unstructured data management today, while preparing for the data demands of AI and machine learning tomorrow.

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Media Contact:
Rick Popko
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