Transforming video data storage and processing

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Learn how EarthCam leveraged Dell PowerScale to increase storage efficiency, productivity and operational savings.

Technological innovation doesn’t just change the tools that organizations use. It also fundamentally changes how organizations operate. This is quite evident for companies working with video. The exponential increase in data exacerbates issues of performance, efficiency, scalability, and reliability. To remain profitable, they must upgrade their equipment and transform their internal work processes.

Consider the challenges faced by EarthCam, a provider of webcam technology and managed services consisting of streaming video, time-lapse movies, and 360-degree reality capture. Every month, the company ingests millions of high-resolution images into its network. To date, its database contains more than a billion files ranging from one to 24 MB in size. The shee how to get usa whatsapp number number of files created complexity in its storage system. One way to manage different types of data is to place them in different silos. While this makes it easier to manage each type of data separately, it complicates overall storage management because each silo must be managed differently in terms of factors such as RAID, RAID groups, and protocols. Scaling was also a challenge because each network expansion increased the complexity of managing the storage pool.

Working with stored data was also quite inefficient. For many of its customers, EarthCam creates time-lapse movies, such as compressing images from a three-month construction project into a one-minute video. Each image in the time-lapse movie has to be hand-selected from the huge number of available images and then enhanced to provide a consistent look and feel. Traditionally, the entire image set is downloaded to the editor’s workstation. Downloading this much data puts a strain on available bandwidth and causes delays across all network workloads.

EarthCam also wanted to reduce its operating costs without compromising efficiency, quality or reliability. And with increasing success came the need to easily scale storage while simplifying overall network management.

Greater efficiency, productivity and operational savings
Dell PowerScale storage, the next generation of scalable storage in the Emmy-winning Isilon line, is designed for applications with data requirements ranging from terabytes to 10 petabytes – the right platform for EarthCam. Typical storage utilization peaks at 66%. Advanced PowerScale capabilities such as globally consistent caching, load balancing and automated tiering increase performance efficiency for every application, delivering utilization in excess of 80%.

EarthCam’s new system did more than just store data. By adding a cluster of high-performance PowerScale nodes, EarthCam was able to shift its video editing platform to local with image data. Now, instead of downloading an entire timeline of images, editors work with only the data they need to complete their work.


For example, for a time-lapse movie, editors can select which images to use from thumbnails rather than the high-resolution originals. These thumbnails are created on local processing resources from stored images, reducing the amount of data that needs to be downloaded by orders of magnitude. This, in turn, provides direct operational savings, both in terms of bandwidth and the time required to complete a task. In the case of EarthCam, working locally reduced the video production team’s processing time by 20%.

The savings didn’t stop there. PowerScale doubled EarthCam’s storage capacity, while reducing the rack space required. Overall, they were able to achieve 26x higher density and 100x faster sustained performance compared to their previous storage deployment.

Seamless scalability and ease of use
Another important requirement for EarthCam was simplified network management. Storage expansion is typically achieved by adding storage bricks. The problem with this approach is that LUNs need to be configured and each node managed. With PowerScale, IT connects a new node and, without having to reconfigure the data pool, data is immediately migrated to the new node to balance the load across the array and maximize performance. Adding a node in this way is relatively simple and can be done without downtime.

EarthCam was able to simplify day-to-day management by consolidating petabytes of different types of data into a single location, eliminating the need for data silos and management of different storage systems. Consolidating to a single volume, a single file system, and a single namespace, both on-premises and in the cloud, greatly simplifies workflows. Removing silos also allows for greater collaboration between groups who can now share collaboration tools and data assets.

PowerScale InsightIQ and other tools provide greater visibility into storage processes and network loads. With this visibility, IT doesn’t have to work up the stack to manage the network. For example, EarthCam can manage its network, such as changing directory performance based on usage, without having to worry about specific LUNs, and those changes take just minutes to apply. In short, a single person can manage petabytes of different types of data. This frees up IT staff from managing data storage, allowing them to focus on optimizing applications and using data more efficiently.

Upgrading to the latest generation PowerScale technologies has also been seamless. After connecting the new PowerScale nodes, the operating system can be configured to begin evacuating data from the nodes being retired to the new nodes. The entire migration can be performed without any downtime.

Ease of use has translated directly to EarthCam’s results: since implementing PowerScale, they have reduced system administration resources by 82% and have been able to maintain five-nines (99.999%) uptime.

Transforming a business doesn’t have to be difficult. The fact is, simplifying transformation is the core job of technology companies. At Dell Technologies, we understand that increasing the efficiency of business operations is just the first step. Part of bringing innovation to market is helping facilitate business transformations that are essential to the growth process.


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