Avid Unveils Frost & Sullivan Whitepaper on Exponential Growth of Content Driving Demand for New Software-defined Media Storage Solutions

Avid® (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced the release of a new whitepaper by leading research and consulting organization, Frost & Sullivan, that uncovers the need for software-defined storage solutions like the new Avid NEXIS™ platform to help media organizations to manage the exponential growth in content. Future-proofing Media Workflows through Software-Defined Storage: Making the Case for Intelligent and Agile Storage Platforms explores the impact of remote working groups, multiple file formats and the proliferation of digital content on media organizations of all sizes, and how software-defined storage solutions can help them efficiently and flexibly manage and store media.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the US and Canada alone released more than 700 films in 2015, a 19% increase since 2006, and there were more than 400 original English-language scripted shows in primetime alone, a 94% increase since 2009. When these figures are scaled across every geography, spanning over 35,000 broadcasters, production houses, cable channels, MSOs, OTT service providers, and magazine and newspaper publishers, a picture of unprecedented scale forms.

This content explosion, combined with a growing amount of raw footage, higher resolutions and frame rates being seen in production today, is putting immense pressure on media organizations to increase agility, collaboration and optimization in their workflows. The paper examines how flexible and adaptable software-defined storage like Avid NEXIS can help media organizations to manage growing volumes of source material, higher resolutions, faster turnaround times, and the need to connect geographically dispersed team members.

Introduced at NAB 2016, Avid NEXIS is the industry’s first and only software-defined storage platform specifically designed for storing and managing media. It enables fully virtualized storage so media organizations can adjust their storage infrastructure mid-project, without disrupting workflows. Leveraging the power of the Avid MediaCentral™ Platform, Avid NEXIS delivers unrivaled media storage flexibility, scalability, and control for both Avid-based and third-party workflows. Designed to serve the smallest production teams as powerfully as the largest media enterprises, it’s the only storage platform built with the flexibility to grow with customers at every stage of their business – fulfilling a key tenet of Avid Everywhere™.

Thanks to the platform openness of Avid Everywhere, Avid NEXIS works with all top media creation applications, including Media Composer®, Pro Tools®, Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Grass Valley EDIUS, and many more. Production teams can quickly access a shared pool of virtualized storage resources, which dramatically increases their efficiency.

“In today’s hyper-competitive media environment, business models are in constant flux and media workflows need to be as dynamic as consumer demand,” said Jeff Rosica, senior vice president, chief sales & marketing officer, Avid. “Software-defined storage is more flexible, adaptable, simple, usable, reliable, and secure—all at a lower cost. Avid NEXIS is the first and only software-defined storage platform that provides media organizations the reliability they need to address today’s workflow demands, the scalability for tomorrow, and the technology to take media production further.”