FUJIFILM INSIGHTS BLOG

Executive Q & A with Dr. Phil Storey, CEO of XenData

Q1: Welcome Phil to this Fujifilm Insights Blog Executive Q & A! Please tell us a bit about XenData and your role and responsibility as CEO.

Ans: Thank you Rich. I and our CTO, Mark Broadbent started XenData over 20 years ago and our product concept has not really changed in that time.

We wanted to develop software to manage tape libraries and RAID for long term secure storage of files and to combine the best characteristics of each. That is disk access times combined with the speed, security and longevity of tape.

The other thing that we wanted was a different business approach. Remember that we started XenData just after the dot com era when there were a huge number of risky businesses that started and then failed. We wanted a solid business with reliable products and great support – which I think we have.

Q2: XenData has been a long-time sponsor of the Active Archive Alliance and you continue to innovate in the area of active archiving. Can you tell us about your LTO Archive Appliances?

Ans: I mentioned that our business concept was to develop software. Well, we learned along the way that customers want solutions that are as turnkey as possible. So today, we mainly sell archive appliances managed by XenData software. By supplying the combined hardware and software, we are able to guarantee performance and minimize any possible problems that come with unbounded hardware options.

Our LTO archive appliances manage one or more LTO libraries and include managed RAID, from a few TB to a PB of disk. We support almost all tape libraries, including from Dell, HPE, IBM, Spectra, Quantum and Qualstar. Our appliances make writing to LTO just like writing to disk on a network. We also have a private cloud interface. We can replicate to public cloud, etc. I could go on. But in summary, by combining disk, tape and cloud we do provide strategic active archive options for our customers.

Q3: So it seems LTO tape still has a lot to offer, what are the key features and benefits appreciated by your customer base?

Ans: In summary, I would say, LTO supports high performance active archiving at a reasonable cost. Most of our customers have at least several 100s TB. It is at that volume of data and above where LTO is particularly attractive from a cost perspective. Of course, the fundamentals of tape are a must for our customers which are high reliability and long life. And in these times of climate change, the low energy profile and low carbon footprint of tape is attractive too.

I should add that we have over 1,500 installations with LTO libraries and about 90% of these are for Media & Entertainment type applications. Our customers include TV stations, Hollywood studios, video production and post-production companies as well as many marketing departments for large corporations and governmental organizations.

Q4: You mentioned Media & Entertainment customers and their appreciation of your LTO tape solutions, tell us about your new Media Portal software?

Ans: This is yet another innovative interface into our LTO archive systems. We have our core file-folder interface that can be accessed via standard windows network protocols like SMB and NFS, an option for a private cloud interface that makes accessing the archive like writing to and reading from Amazon Web Services S3 and now Media Portal adds a web interface. A user can browse the file-folder structure of their archive, see previews of video files and image files and then download the files that they need. We also have a search capability which is based on file and folder name. Media Portal will be released later this year and I am very excited about it, especially as it opens up all sorts of options for future development including AI options like converting speech to text and then searching on the text.

Q5: You mentioned that most of your archive installations are for Media & Entertainment applications. Would you tell us more about some of the other application areas?

Ans: We have installations in video surveillance, healthcare and life sciences applications. A solution that combines both disk and LTO tape is particularly attractive for large video surveillance installations because it offers longer retention periods with massive scalability at a very reasonable cost.  

Q6: You recently returned from the IBC show in Amsterdam in mid-September. What can you share about the show; what was the buzz overall and in storage specifically?

Ans: Not surprisingly, AI was a key theme at the show, with a dedicated AI Tech Zone. The show also addressed sustainability, including energy efficiency in devices and delivery systems. So for us, it was super busy as there is lots of demand for long-term energy efficient storage. One of the recurring themes was the realization among our customers and prospective customers that cloud is so expensive for users even with just a few hundred TBs of content.

Q7: Finally, when you are not globe-trotting and running XenData, what do you like to do in your spare time?

Ans: Last year, my wife and I moved from California to just outside of Minneapolis to be close to our two lovely granddaughters. As you know, the winters are brutal in Minnesota, but we had a plan for that. Three years ago, we started designing and building a house on the beach in the Yucatan, just north of Merida. We only completed the project in July of this year. So, the answer to your question, ‘what do we do now’ is just one word: relax!

Thanks for your time Phil, and we wish you a lot of success with your innovative LTO tape solutions!

Executive Q & A with Gavin Griffiths,
Founder & Managing Director, Insurgo Technology

Q1: Welcome Gavin to this Fujifilm Insights Executive Q & A! Please tell us a bit about your role and responsibility as Founder & Managing Director of Insurgo Technology.

Ans:

I have been involved with Tape media for over 20 years, firstly as a salesperson selling the old Open Reel tapes and 3480/90 and 3590 media we manufactured here in Wales, UK. This was just about when LTO1 hit the marketplace to rival the S-DLT technology. A 100GB tape back then was a fantastic feat!

I started Insurgo Technology nearly 15 years ago, we had a couple of months working from my house, before opening an office for sales and delivery service of tape media worldwide. With advancements in tape technology, we recognized the need for a secure destruction solution for tape. Popular methods for end-of-life tape destruction were outdated and no longer matched the technological advances made by manufacturers. Our focus shifted to developing tangible services that would add value for customers. We explored tools for services like testing, repair, and recovery, along with managing and storing tapes. However, it became clear that the secure destruction of tapes required a more progressive approach to ensure data protection and compliance. I now drive this initiative.

We set up an R&D division in 2011, headed by our Technical Director and inventor, Roy Spiller. Roy has been in the industry twice as long as me and had manufactured the physical tape as well as servicing the machines which made the tape film. We set out to develop a secure data destruction service, in which we could, hand on heart, issue a certificate of destruction with 100% certainty, that the data on the tape was wiped of all data and traces of information.

While Insurgo was founded on tape sales and some associated aftermarket services, today we have developed the most secure and traceable systems for tape disposal. We can save over half the CO2 impacts of current shredding and incineration whilst ensuring a complete solid chain of custody.

That’s 300 metric tons of CO2 saved per 1 million tapes.

Q2: Can you tell us about the breakthrough work you are doing in recycling of data tape cartridges at the end-of-life stage?

Ans:

We have developed technology patented in 53 countries that dramatically reduces CO2 emissions, during the destruction process. Our solution is over 800 times more efficient than traditional shredding machines and 10 times more efficient than standard degaussers. Unique ability to time and date stamps every step of the process, through the chain of custody, irrevocably linking the drives to each tape being processed.

As part of our ongoing R&D to enhance these processes, we have begun dismantling tapes and repurposing all their main components, through an auditable process We can already demonstrate through life cycle assessment methodology a CO2 reduction of over 50% compared to onsite shredding and incineration. We are working on various aspects of the tape film to improve these numbers even further. Our ultimate goal is to find a new purpose for all the tape components.

Q3: Tape has been around for 70+ years, but I am not aware of tape recycling programs prior to your program. What has been the driver for this initiative?

Ans:

Interestingly, we have been repurposing tape media long before plastic recycling became a trend! Our new recycling service paired with our destruction process helps businesses to mitigate their CO2 impact further.

Despite these environmental efforts, data security must remain the top priority. It is crucial to recognize that the tape landscape has evolved dramatically. The capacity alone went from 100GB to 50TB in 20 years, yet the methods for destruction used two decades ago should be considered obsolete.

We now offer customers the opportunity to significantly reduce their environmental impact by over half, while ensuring data security and full traceability. It is the ultimate win-win situation!

Q4: How do you see differences in demand for this recycling program in the EU vs, U.S.A and/or ROW?

Ans:

The EU enforces stricter controls, requiring emissions targets to be achieved, met, and published. Many global companies we engage with are considering integrating these practices into their worldwide policies anticipating future global regulatory requirements. Even without physical recycling, our service benefits both security and CO2 reduction.

Moving forward, we would like to see a reduction in the data industry’s “end of life” emissions, and this being adopted worldwide. Insurgo Technology is now becoming recognized by Global companies, especially banking corporations based in Europe, as they pursue a more secure and environmentally friendly solution to tape end of life.

Q5: What do you see as the biggest objections to adoption of your recycling program and how do you address those?

Ans: It is a great question.

Honestly, I cannot see any reason why anyone would not want to switch to our system immediately! We have spent over 12 years refining and perfecting our technology, providing a compelling story and journey for all who know us. The systems are portable, the software is online, easy to follow and implement, but most importantly secure.

We have developed our technology, now we need to expand our message and progress our marketing reach much further, making our proposition concise and simple to understand.

We have the highest level of security and traceability, soon to add library automation to further improve process times and volume demands, including hyperscaler’s. Add all the environmental benefits we touched on, our technology package is the end to end, world leader in data tape secure destruction.

Q6: Where can readers get more information about Insurgo data tape cartridge recycling?

Ans: Details of our technology systems, Investigo software, and scanners will be found by going directly to the page located on the Insurgo website

https://insurgo.co.uk/secure-disposal-solutions/

Q6: Finally, when you are not slaving away for Insurgo, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

Ans:

In fairness, I currently have a great work life balance. The team at Insurgo technology work as one to achieve the common goals we set at the start of the financial year, and we all share in the responsibilities for these goals.

With an active teenage family, time flies by, one with newly acquired interior design eyes and another who enjoys soccer and video gaming, which is a relatable aspect for me as a father to enjoy as well!

I have a local squash club, keeping me in half decent shape throughout the week and with both the soccer and football seasons just around the corner, my weekends of watching the premier league and NFL will make up the rest of my time.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss all these aspects with you Rich.

Thanks for your time, Gavin, and we wish you a lot of success with your data tape cartridge recycling program!

Executive Q & A with Jay Jason Bartlett, CEO, Cozaint

Q1: Welcome Jay to this Fujifilm Insights Executive Q & A! Please tell us a bit about your role and responsibility as CEO of Cozaint.

Ans:  Thanks Rich for the invite. I head up a great team of engineers and professionals that have a ton of experience with intelligent surveillance solutions, product development, data storage, and physical security. I’m fortunate to drive the efforts of Cozaint and help this team deliver a market disruptive video surveillance storage solution.

Q2: So, you are pioneering the use of today’s modern LTO data tape for video surveillance content retention. Wasn’t tape the defacto standard before HDDs took over?

Ans: Well, VHS tape was indeed the defacto storage media back in the analog days of video surveillance, say before 2012, when it largely became the domain of HDDs However, we are pushing an innovative new use of LTO data tape media within the video surveillance market to address today’s pain points of high cost and energy intensive HDDs.

Cozaint has a patent-pending on implementing LTO data tape storage in a video surveillance infrastructure in such a way that the video management software (VMS) is able to recall and playback -all- recorded video, without any extra steps or IT personnel needed.

And yes, we do believe this is a ground-breaking approach to utilize VMS aware LTO data tape in the video surveillance market.

Q3:  What is different about today’s market compared to 2016 when LTO was tried in the VS market?

Ans:

Because so many managers and executives at organizations with responsibility of the physical security / video surveillance infrastructure have been around for a while, when the word ‘tape’ storage is used, modern LTO-9 data tape technology gets confused with old-fashion analog VHS tape storage.

And with the advances in LTO technology, today with LTO-9 digital data tape having a capacity of 18-Terabytes on a single cartridge, the ability to record, store, and manage large amounts of video data on inexpensive and eco-friendly LTO data cartridges is a significant advancement. It solves for higher resolution cameras and longer retention periods for things like AI analytics.

In years past, vendors did try to use LTO in the video surveillance market and some do today but purely for very long-term archive. However, those IT professionals didn’t really have an in-depth understanding of how video needed to be available for easy playback, more of a warm active archive rather than a cold archive use case. Therefore, the implementations were more IT centric instead of video surveillance operations centric. Unfortunately, those prior attempts to use LTO were met with resistance by the users and operators of those VMS systems. They really needed seamless performance when pulling content from an HDD tier or a tape tier.

Another huge difference from 2016 video storage and today’s systems is how ESG or “green” solutions are more important. How much a video storage system eats up in energy costs and cooling costs and management costs has skyrocketed. This is yet another advantage for LTO as there is absolutely no ‘greener’ storage media than LTO. The TCO costs savings should make anyone give such an LTO solution a long serious look.

Q4: You said LTO tape must be VMS aware, what does that mean?

Ans:

Cozaint has learned from those previous attempts to utilize LTO that the center of the universe of any video surveillance infrastructure is the video management software (VMS). Meaning, that the user / operator of the VMS that is needing to recall and playback recorded video, needs to do so directly and easily via the VMS software ‘timeline’ feature.

This timeline is where the VMS operator will scroll back and forth (some call it scrubbing the timeline) to search for the event of interest within the recorded video.

Unlike other systems, such as video editing tools in the media and entertainment industry, the VMS operator really does not know what or where they are looking. They have a general idea, but need to bounce around the VMS timeline to find the event.

This timeline scrubbing creates a specific challenge for video storage when attempting to implement LTO storage. The VMS and the underlying infrastructure need to be flexible enough, yet sophisticated enough, to know where the video of interest could be stored on a number of LTO tapes and then be able to quickly load and seek the video.

This is where LTO storage libraries come into focus within such an infrastructure. With multiple LTO drives available in various size LTO libraries, with LTO cartridge ‘slots’ within such a library (think of a classic record jukebox), the ability to quickly find the needed video is significantly faster.

This LTO library with multiple LTO drive capabilities delivers a level of scalability that is just not affordable in a hard-disk only video storage system.

And this scalability is what provides for a dramatically lower cost to store video with LTO.

Q5: Tell us about Marcia and how is it a breakthrough enabler for LTO to work in the VS industry?

Ans:

Cozaint’s MARCIA™ middleware software sits behind any file-based VMS system and manages a multiple tier storage infrastructure, for example HDD + LTO. Again, with years of understanding how video surveillance storage is managed, we have learned that the ideal set-up is a two-tier storage approach.

The first tier of storage is hard-disk based to allow the VMS operator to recall and playback their most recent recorded video. The customer / organization can determine the retention period they need for their operations with, let’s call it instant gratification in video playback, tier 1 and then all the video recordings being held on tier 2 consisting of LTO scalable storage.

A large expense/cost of a video surveillance infrastructure is in the hard-disk storage portion of the overall solution. Even though hard drives seem “cheap” – when you start needing more than a couple hundred terabytes of video storage, the hard disk storage becomes expensive quickly. Not to mention power and cooling.

Therefore, when we create a 2-tier video storage solution with minimal hard disk storage and scalable LTO storage, we can deliver a significantly more affordable system.

MARCIA is the middleware that manages all of this multi-tier storage so that the VMS operator does not need to think about where any of their video is recorded and stored. MARCIA keeps track of what is on tier 1 and tier 2 and quickly loads and plays the video the operator is requesting. And as the operator ‘bounces around the timeline’ MARCIA is able to deliver the requested video either instantly as in a typical solution or within just a couple of minutes if the video is located on LTO.

What this really delivers for the organization is better outcomes for the overall usage of the recorded video surveillance. If you think about why you are doing the video recordings in the first place, being able to quickly and easily recall and playback video is important.

More important is the quality of that recorded video. As soon as the industry moved from those analog VHS tapes, the hard-disk based video storage vendors have been coercing compromises in the video quality to make up for the expensive costs of hard disk storage.

Motion-only based recordings; low-frame rate recordings; low-resolution recordings even from very high-resolution cameras. All of these “normal” practices in video surveillance recording are being compromised because of the expense of hard-disk based storage systems.

It’s actually quite amazing how users have just become desensitized to these poor-quality compromises.

Q6: Any idea how much HDD capacity is shipped into the global market just for VS data retention?

Ans:

According to IDC, the capacity shipments of HDD into video surveillance applications in 2021 were 111 Exabytes, about 8.0% of total HDD shipments, followed by 79 EB or 7% in 2022 and estimated at 100 EB or about 7.5% in 2023.

By comparison, LTO capacity shipments in 2023 were 153 EB with 2.5X compression, so maybe 65 EB native? Therefore, the HDD market just for VS applications is larger than the entire LTO market.

That’s a lot of video data.  And we want to help organizations record, store, and manage that video in the most cost-efficient way possible. While making it easy to playback at the same time.   I think we have solved that issue.

Q7: Where can readers find more information about your solutions?

Ans: Sure, just go to www.cozaint.com and also check out the VS TCO calculator comparing the cost of VS retention with and without LTO at: www.bradjohnsconsulting.com/vs-tco

Q8: Finally, when you are not slaving away for Cozaint, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

Ans:

It’s hard to believe we have been building Cozaint for over six years now and in the video surveillance industry since 2008. I’m obviously older now and my joy of being on a basketball court or out on the water on a sailboat has been replaced with three wonderful adult children and their spouses and now four adorable grandchildren. There really is nothing better than being “Papa.”

Thanks for your time Jay, and we wish you a lot of success with your software and getting LTO seeded in the Video Surveillance market!

Fred Moore of Horison Information Strategies, a long-time storage industry expert and consultant, recently published a 2024 update of his report entitled “Tape. New Game. New Rules”.

This updated report provides a focus on how modern magnetic data tape is solving for IT challenges including runaway data growth, economic pressure, sustainability issues, cybercrime and the reliability that’s needed for the long term preservation of data. And that data that has also grown dramatically in value as we learn to analyze it and derive competitive advantage from it.

Below are 9 reasons why today’s modern tape systems represent a new game with new rules. Taken together, they make a compelling case for many to revisit the rich value proposition that tape has to offer now and well into the future.

LTO Ecosystem Extends Roadmap

In 2022, the LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), HPE, IBM and Quantum Corporation, announced an updated LTO technology roadmap that extends the LTO Ultrium standard through 14 generations. The roadmap calls for tape capacities to double with each new generation, with LTO-14 delivering up to 1,440 TB (1.44 PB compressed) per tape. The new LTO roadmap extension is more relevant than ever and at this point no other storage technologies have revealed a comparable multi-generational roadmap.

LTO-9 Adds Capacity and Features

LTO-9 is the latest LTO generation bringing new functionality to tape including higher capacity, data rate, access time and reliability improvements.  LTO-9 increased the native cartridge capacity of LTO-8 by 50% to 18 TB (45 TB compressed) and increased drive throughput (11%) up to 400 MB/sec enabling a single LTO-9 drive to write up to 1.44 TB/hour. A new feature for the LTO family with LTO-9, oRAO (Open Recommended Access Order) reduces initial file access times to first byte of data by as much as 73%.

Record Capacity Achieved with TS1170 Tape Storage System

2023 marked the debut of a new ultra-high-density tape drive with a native storage capacity of 50 TB in a single cartridge and capacities up to 150 TB per cartridge with 3:1 compression. The IBM TS1170 storage system represents the world’s highest cartridge capacity ever announced and enables data intensive secondary storage applications including AI, big data, archiving, cloud computing, and analytics to significantly reduce their total cost of ownership.

Further Improvements Made in Tape Media Longevity

In 2019, Fujifilm and JEITA (Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association) officially confirmed the longevity of Barium Ferrite magnetic signal strength to be stable for at least 50 years based on studies of LTO-7 tapes. Prior to this confirmation, the number of years for LTO tape longevity had been rated up to 30 years.

Tape Leads Reliability Ratings

Since LTO-1 first came to market in 2000 with a native capacity of 100 GB, the capacity of LTO cartridges has increased by 180 times and data rates have increased by 20 times. Over the same period, the specified uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (BER) of LTO cartridges has improved by a factor of 1000, three orders of magnitude improvement. LTO-9 provides an industry leading uncorrectable bit error rate of 1×10²⁰ compared to the highest HDD BER at 1×10¹⁷. A BER of 1×10²⁰ corresponds to one unrecoverable read error event for every 12.5 exabytes of data read. Today, both the latest LTO and enterprise tape products are more reliable than any HDD (or SSD).

Tape Reduces CO2, eWaste and TCO

Moore cites key stats from Improving Information Technology Sustainability with Modern Tape Storage, a research paper issued by Brad John’s Consulting that compared an all data on HDD solution to an all-tape solution and to an active archive that moved 60% of the HDD resident (low activity) data to tape. Moving 60% of HDD data to tape for 10 years reduced carbon emissions by 58% and electronic waste was reduced by 53%. Moving 60% of HDD data to tape, results in a 46% TCO savings. Moving all data to tape results in a 78% cost reduction.

Tape Air-Gap Thwarts Cybercrime

The tape air gap, inherent with tape technology, has ignited significant interest in storing data on air-gapped tape. The “tape air gap” means that there is no electronic connection to the data stored on a removeable tape cartridge therefore preventing a malware attack on stored data. HDD and SSD systems remaining online 7x24x365 are always vulnerable to a cybercrime attack.

Data Protection Strategies Evolving with Tape

Using tape to backup HDDs was the original data protection strategy, but having one backup copy is no longer sufficient. The widely accepted and genetically diverse 3-2-1-1 Backup Strategy states that enterprises should have three copies of backup data on two different media types, one copy offsite and one air gap copy. Combining the tape air gap copy with available tape drive encryption and available WORM (Write Once Read Many) tape strengthens any data center cyber resiliency strategy.

Active Archive Leverages Tape

As the amount of secondary storage data soars, new technology tiers are emerging in secondary storage including the Active Archive, Traditional Archive and Deep Archive to address many new use cases. Many data management products now support tape as an object storage target using S3 services. Combining the open tape file system LTFS with tape partitioning, data mover software (HSM, etc.), an HDD array or NAS in front of a tape library creates an active archive.

In Conclusion

At least 80% of the world’s digital data is optimally suited to reside on secondary storage and this amount could reach nearly 7 ZBs by 2025. In response to this, the tape ecosystem has significantly expanded its capabilities in recent years. Tape has also become the leading pure storage solution to defend against cybercrime by seamlessly integrating air gap, encryption and WORM capabilities. Roadmaps signal that the trend of steady tape innovation will continue well into the future. Tape is the greenest storage technology and can significantly reduce carbon emissions and eWaste from data center operations. More large-scale tier 2 data centers are determined to contain their infrastructure costs and improve their sustainability metrics. They will be motivated to rethink existing data storage practices and take advantage of advanced magnetic tape as they approach exabyte scale. Combined with improved access times, faster data rates, a 50-year media life, lowest TCO and the highest device reliability, modern tape has the greatest potential to address the massive capacity demands of the zettabyte era.

To read the full report:

https://asset.fujifilm.com/www/us/files/2024-03/1cb09f4968e7adf72ce54d2ecfe2853b/Horison-Tape-New-Game-update-2024.pdf

Reading Time: 4 minutesAs both an active archive and tape evangelist, I’m excited to share how LTO (Linear Tape-Open) tape technology can transform video surveillance storage into a powerful, affordable, and long-term active archive solution. While there is a desperate need for more storage to support the proliferation of video surveillance applications, many in the video surveillance industry view the concept of “archive” as a burdensome process. But when done right with easy-to-use LTO tape systems, it becomes a strategic advantage in the form of an active archive.

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Reading Time: 2 minutesBig data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, video surveillance, and social media are among some of the biggest trends in the technology industry driving the creation of massive data sets that need to be managed and retained.

A new report from the Tape Storage Council: Tape Is Primed for The Rise in Secondary Storage, looks at the current data growth and economic factors driving the demand for advanced solutions to effectively contain Petascale and Exascale requirements. Many organizations continue to store this data on more costly to operate HDDs (hard disk drives) which require constant power and cooling to maintain reliable operations.

However, as digital data creation continues to grow at 25% or more per year, at least 80% of the world’s digital data is lower activity data optimally suited for secondary storage. Secondary storage is persistent storage designed to keep less critical and less active data on more economical, secure storage mediums that don’t need to be accessed as frequently as data on primary storage.

In response to this challenge, the tape ecosystem has significantly expanded its capabilities in recent years. LTO tape capacity continues to increase as new magnetic particles like Barium Ferrite and Strontium Ferrite will help to scale tape areal density for decades to come and current roadmaps signal that the trend of steady tape innovation will continue well into the future. It’s time to rethink existing data storage practices and take advantage of advanced magnetic tape for delivering the most sustainable, cost effective, highly scalable, and reliable mass storage systems.

For more information the ransomware-resilient, long-term data archiving benefits of tape storage and to download the full report, visit https://tapestorage.org.

Reading Time: 2 minutesVideo surveillance has become an essential tool in many industries, from law enforcement to retail, transportation, and critical infrastructure. The ability to capture and analyze video footage has enabled organizations to enhance their security, prevent crimes, optimize operations, and make data-driven decisions.

However, with the proliferation of high-definition cameras, the exponential growth of video data, and the increasing demand for longer retention periods, managing video surveillance storage has become a significant challenge for many IT and security departments.

Rather than storing all video data on expensive, energy-intensive, high-performance storage devices such as hard disk drives, organizations can leverage a 2-tiered approach that provides for the quick access of the most recent video and the availability of all recorded video no matter when it was originally stored. This approach can significantly reduce storage costs, optimize system performance, reduce carbon footprint, and simplify video data management.

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Reading Time: 5 minutesRecently I had the opportunity to meet with a newly appointed Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) at a major scientific research organization. In this new position that seems to be trending across many industries, this CSO has been tasked with the overall responsibility for understanding the organization’s energy profile and how its carbon footprint is spread across its many different departments and then to figure out what actions can be taken to help achieve its carbon reduction goals. With this understanding in place, the CSO will proceed to put downward pressure on the department heads to make meaningful change.

Given this background, the purpose of my call was to explain the role that today’s modern data tape can play in reducing power consumption and associated carbon footprint in data centers. Since this CSO really had no experience in large scale data operations, she was eager to listen given her need to start looking at every department to quickly identify opportunities for energy and carbon reduction. She will go after the low-hanging fruit first, but eventually no stone will be left unturned if her organization is to meet their aggressive sustainability goals.

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Reading Time: 5 minutesThe National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) held their annual conference this week in Las Vegas. Some 68,000 attendees from broadcasters to screenwriters, advertisers and streamers, to producers and filmmakers were eager to learn about the latest in media and entertainment technology. Some 1,200 exhibitors set up shop in the Las Vegas convention center, including FUJIFILM with our FUJINON lenses, and Recording Media in the form of LTO tape technology.

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Reading Time: 5 minutes  I attended the International Security Conference West (ISC West) in Las Vegas last week. The show was well attended with some 20,000 visitors packing the aisles and mobbing the booths of some 650 vendors. The show covers everything from video surveillance to computer and communications security, to physical plant security, loss prevention, and more.  

A few items struck me as a first-time visitor to the show, namely, entire booths dedicated to gunshot detection devices and others dedicated to things like drone detection. It’s a sad sign of the times when security professionals have to install gunshot detection devices to improve response time and mitigate deadly intrusions. In the case of drone detection, if you are being spied upon from above, no worries drone detection radar can now electronically jam unmanned aerial vehicles and can even deliver a kill shot as a last resort.   

The other item most relevant to me was the fact that this industry stores almost all of its video surveillance content on expensive, energy-intensive hard disk drives. That’s a problem in general, but even more so when security professionals are being besieged by any number of new budget-draining threats like gun-toting intruders and nefarious aerial snoopers.  

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