Powering GoogleEarth With a SAN File System: An ADIC Case Study
March 06 2006 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Using solutions from Advanced Digital Information Corporation
(NASDAQ:ADIC), the leader in Intelligent Storage(TM) solutions for
the open systems market, DigitalGlobe is able to complete image
processing jobs in less than three hours, a four-fold improvement
from 10-12 hours. DigitalGlobe is a leader in the global commercial
Earth imagery and geospatial information market, and their images
are central to a wide range of industries, including energy,
exploration, regional planning, environmental monitoring, emergency
response planning, intelligence, and 3D simulation. Its customers
and partners include Google, as well as an international list of
companies, government agencies, and news media. The company's
products are high resolution images, and an important part of its
competitive advantage is its ability to turn raw data into usable
images fast. The process starts with raw data collected by the
company's QuickBird satellite and transmitted to three ground
stations in Alaska and Norway. Those stations send nearly 150GB of
data per day over a wide-area network to the company's Longmont
Colorado headquarters. There the raw data is processed in stages by
up to a dozen specialized applications to sharpen images, manage
color and contrast, provide different spectral views, and assemble
multiple images into a single mosaic, depending on customer needs.
For the IT department, the production processing stage is the key
to DigitalGlobe's business, and it is a key component in their
ability to win contacts, meet revenue targets, and grow their
business. The company works with very large files -- 120 to 400 MB
for each raw input file, and it was a very slow process to move and
copy all the raw data multiple times before they could finish an
imagery product. The answer to get its products to market faster
was ADIC's StorNext data management software. "StorNext has great
scalability and stability," said John-David Childs, lead network
manager, DigitalGlobe. "Most file systems won't go over 2TB, but
ADIC's goes over 100TB. The file system interface lets multiple
applications and operating systems share a common pool of digital
assets, giving us the kind of high performance we need to handle
large files and large data sets on a fast production schedule."
Childs adds, "Our volumes are up drastically this year, and the
overall pixels we're getting out the door are up 80%. The time
we're saving with ADIC is being put to good use. We plan to launch
another satellite and grow our U.S. government business next year,
and when that happens, the storage volume will expand by three or
four times. This increased volume should not be a problem because
our preliminary tests show that StorNext can handle 20 times more
throughput." DigitalGlobe is also leveraging StorNext to improve
its system for delivering finished products to customers, saving
time and money. According to David Arlington, senior systems
engineer, "StorNext lets us set up our distribution management
system so that our FTP servers and media writing tools can all work
from a single, large data pool. The result is that products get out
the door faster, and we spend less time managing the process." A
formatted copy of this case study is posted at
www.adic.com/digitalglobe. About DigitalGlobe Longmont,
Colorado-based DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com) is the clear
leader in the global commercial Earth imagery and geospatial
information market. The company's technical superiority and
innovation, unparalleled commitment to customer service, extensive
business partner network and open systems philosophy make
DigitalGlobe the preferred supplier of imagery products to
government and commercial markets. DigitalGlobe's QuickBird
satellite is the world's highest resolution commercial imaging
system. The company's next-generation WorldView I is scheduled to
launch no later than 2006, and WorldView II is anticipated to
launch in 2008, pending finalization of customer contracts. The
company's updated and growing ImageLibrary contains over one
hundred. About ADIC Advanced Digital Information Corporation
(NASDAQ:ADIC) is a leading provider of Intelligent Storage(TM)
solutions to the open systems marketplace. ADIC is the world's
largest supplier of automated tape systems using the drive
technologies most often employed for backing up open system,
client-server networks.(1) The Company's data management software,
storage networking appliances, and disk-based backup and restore
solutions provide IT managers innovative tools for storing,
managing, and protecting their most valuable digital assets in a
variety of disk and tape environments. ADIC storage products are
available through a worldwide sales force and a global network of
resellers, OEMs and partnerships, including Apple, Dell, EMC,
Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM, and Sun. Further information about ADIC
is available at www.adic.com. (1) Market Share:Gartner Dataquest,
Tape Automation Systems Market Shares, 2004, F. Yale, August 2005.
ADIC and Scalar are registered trademarks and Intelligent Storage
is a trademark of Advanced Digital Information Corporation. All
other trade or service marks mentioned in this document should be
considered the property of their respective owners.
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