Marquis Broadcast has launched Fotonflite – a high-performance, secure ‘on-the-fly’, point-to-point transfer system for Avid Media Composer projects and media workspaces. It allows files to be moved between source Avid ISIS/NEXIS systems and a range of target storage types, including Avid, generic and proprietary storage. Fotonflite is unique in its ability to directly connect and securely synchronise live Avid ISIS/NEXIS systems, especially with Avid work-in-progress, and is ideal for connecting production centres over the internet, for example, Pinewood and Hollywood.
Fotonflite is an option for Marquis Workspace Sync, Workspace Backup and Project Parking professional production workflow tools, which are all Avid-certified. The operation of Fotonflite is totally transparent to these applications. It was developed in response to two different customer requirements: a studio that needed to securely sync Avid NEXIS between US and UK; and a post house who wanted to securely protect and manage remote freelance Media Composer projects on Tier 2 storage. In each case, existing transfer technologies were deemed insecure, since they required data ‘at rest’ outside of the connected servers.
“Conventional transfers may expose Avid productions to additional security risks, since the files must often be copied to a temporary folder, where they’re at rest, before the network-accelerated transfer system will pick them up,” explains sales and marketing director, Paul Glasgow. “Fotonflite solves this problem by using a point-to-point connection that’s always in-flight, so at no point during Fotonflite-enabled replication, archive, copy, share and sync processes will data be at rest outside the source or target storage systems.”
Traditionally, access to an Avid ISIS or NEXIS system has only been possible if a workstation was attached to NEXIS via a high-performance, low latency, low jitter LAN and was locally running the Avid NEXIS Client software, and network distances may be restricted. Fotonflite removes this fundamental limitation for attached Marquis applications, enabling many new, remote workflows if required, even operating at intercontinental distances.
When used with Project Parking, Fotonflite can help archive from Avid on-line storage to Tier 2 storage in a remote location. This allows for additional protection from disasters by putting the archive off site, enabling a large facility with multiple locations to maintain a single archive site with savings in management, administration and security.
Using unique ISIS/NEXIS analytics, Fotonflite transfers project and media changes from one storage system to the other as delta transfers. After the first full Fotonflite transfer, any subsequent transfers send only the project and media changes. This intelligence transforms the speed and efficiency of subsequent updates or backups, and in many scenarios, reduces network payload by 90 per cent for the fastest possible target project and/or workspace updates. It also offers more choices when deploying remote disaster recovery and business continuity solutions to protect Avid ISIS / NEXIS work-in-progress.
Fotonflite is completely transparent in operation. Project Parking, Workspace Backup and Workspace Sync will act in the same way as they would when writing to any of the storage types locally. The transfer to the remote site is handled entirely in the background and the remote storage looks, to the Marquis user, as if it were installed locally. Fotonflite is available as an upgrade for existing Workspace Backup, Workspace Sync and Project Parking customers with a valid support contract and as an option for new customers.
More information can be found in the Marquis Fotonflite whitepaper. For further information about Marquis Broadcast’s range of professional broadcast and production workflow tools, visit their website.
