Quantum Corporation

Quantum Corporation today announced new product lines and capabilities which significantly expand its video surveillance and physical security product portfolio. The expanded portfolio includes:   A new line of network video recording servers A new line of servers for building management systems and GPU-based video analytics New capabilities for the VS-HCI Series, which the company launched in 2019 to provide hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) for surveillance recording, video management, and building operations. These expanded product offerings add to Quantum’s existing solutions for shared archive storage for surveillance, based on its StorNext® file system and the recently announced acquisition of the ActiveScale™ object storage solutions. The result is one of the broadest security infrastructure solution portfolios available from any single vendor. With new NVR servers, building management and video analytics QuantumCorp offers the broadest security infrastructure portfolio available. New Network Video Recording Server Line These expanded product offerings add to Quantum’s existing solutions for shared archive storage for surveillanceQuantum’s new line of Network Video Recording (NVR) servers complement the company’s VS-HCI Series and are offered in both mini-tower and rack-mounted form factors to provide customers with a range of affordable, reliable, and high-performance options for surveillance recording and video management. Quantum’s VST mini-tower NVRs are designed to support the surveillance of retail stores, gas stations, small buildings and campuses, and other small implementations, while Quantum’s VS4160 NVR is one of the most dense and highest capacity NVRs available for environments with large retention requirements.   New Analytics and Application Servers To support the extreme graphics processing and parallel workload demands of video analytics, Quantum has introduced the VS2108-A analytics server. The VS2108-A can be configured with up to six GPUs in a compact 2U chassis and will accelerate results with leading video analytics software platforms. For access control and building management applications that require a highly available architecture, Quantum is introducing a new highly available application server, the VS1110-A.  Quantum’s new VS1110-A Enterprise application server utilizes the same virtual machine (VM) failover capability found in Quantum’s VS-HCI series. Like the VS-HCI series, the VS1110-A server can be monitored remotely via a secure web-based portal, enabling facilities managers, integrators and Quantum support to proactively monitor this system anytime, anywhere. Monitor VS-HCI Series Health Remotely via Secure Web-Based Portal To support the extreme graphics processing and parallel workload demands of video analytics, Quantum has introduced the VS2108-A analytics serverQuantum has enhanced the capabilities of the VS-HCI series with secure, remote monitoring via a web-based portal. The Quantum VS-HCI series provides hyperconverged infrastructure for surveillance recording, video management, and building operations. The highly available architecture scales out as video camera counts increase and makes it easy to manage operations by running multiple physical security workloads on a single platform.  Quantum StorNext and ActiveScale Storage for Large Surveillance Archives On March 16, 2020, Quantum announced that it had completed the acquisition of the ActiveScale object storage business from Western Digital. Object storage can be used as a tier for multi-petabyte surveillance infrastructure. Video is typically captured and recorded on higher-performance servers, then archived on object storage-based systems. The combination of Quantum’s StorNext file system and ActiveScale object storage can be a valuable solution for shared archive storage in many surveillance environments. Supporting Quotes “The most important message from Quantum to all of our customers and partners during this unprecedented time is that our top priority is the health and safety of our society, our employees, our communities and all of you. Our next priority is to ensure business continuity and site security,” said Jamie Lerner, President and CEO, Quantum. “Video surveillance plays a vital role in securing infrastructure and critical assets, and in protecting citizens. We’ve applied our years of expertise to build a comprehensive portfolio for surveillance, and we are responding quickly to the needs of our customers.” “Kepler Networks customers are on the front line of change in the surveillance industry, and as video surveillance technology has evolved it has placed unprecedented strain on storage,” said Gavin Bortles, President, Kepler Networks. “Customers who adopt intelligent, scalable storage as the foundation of their new surveillance and security system leave more budget for cameras, analytics, and other tools dedicated to protecting people and property.  

Quantum Corporation announces it has completed its acquisition of the ActiveScale™ object storage business from Western Digital Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp. The acquisition expands Quantum’s leadership role in storing and managing video and other unstructured data using a software-defined approach. Jamie Lerner, President and CEO, Quantum commented, “The strategic acquisition of ActiveScale bolsters our existing product portfolio and expands our addressable market providing critical software capabilities that enhance our go to market strategy with minimal risk to Quantum. With engineers who developed ActiveScale’s erasure-coded object store software now on our team, we are in a position to pursue new object solutions truly optimized for managing video and other unstructured data.” Erasure coding technology The ActiveScale product line adds object storage software and erasure coding technology to Quantum’s portfolio, enabling the company to expand its product offerings in the object storage market. Object storage has emerged as a potent response to the exponential growth of video and other forms of unstructured data. This content requires high-speed capture and processing (typically done with a file system like Quantum’s StorNext® solution), then is often retained for years or decades. Examples of this unstructured data include video and images for entertainment, surveillance and security, marketing and training, and more. Prior to this acquisition Quantum has successfully delivered and supported the ActiveScale object storage product line for over five years.

Quantum Corporation announced it has entered into an agreement with Western Digital Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp., to acquire its ActiveScale object storage business. The addition of the ActiveScale product line and talent brings object storage software and erasure coding technology to Quantum’s portfolio, and enables the company to expand in the object storage market. The acquisition demonstrates Quantum’s commitment to innovation and growth, extending the company’s leadership role in storing and managing video and unstructured data using a software-defined approach. Quantum and Western Digital are committed to executing a smooth transition for customers and key stakeholders, with Quantum providing post-closing continued support for ActiveScale products and a strong commitment to invest in - and enhance - the ActiveScale product line. Key technologies for managing video Industries like advanced driver assistance systems are generating huge amounts of similar data The transaction is expected to close by March 31, 2020, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Quantum expects the initial financial impact of the transaction to be neutral to slightly accretive to current business operations and additional guidance will be provided with the release of the fiscal Q4 2020 financial results. Video and other forms of unstructured data are growing exponentially in every industry. IDC forecasts this type of data will represent over 80% of all the world’s data by 2022*. Examples of this unstructured data include video and images for entertainment, surveillance and security, marketing and training, and more. In addition, industries like genomics research, advanced driver assistance systems, geospatial exploration, and more are generating huge amounts of similar data. Hierarchical file system structure This content requires high-speed capture and processing (typically done with a file system like StorNext), then is generally retained for many years or decades. Object storage software has a number of attributes that make it particularly well-suited for a wide range of datasets: Massive Scalability: Store, manage and analyze billions of objects, and exabytes of capacity. Highly Durable and Available: ActiveScale object storage offers up to 19 nines of data durability using patented erasure coding protection technologies. Easy to Manage at Scale: Because object storage has a flat namespace (compared to a hierarchical file system structure) managing billions of objects and hundreds of petabytes o capacity is easier than using traditional network attached storage. This reduces operational expenses. Object storage software for active archives Quantum has a history of success delivering object storage and has been selling and supporting the ActiveScale product line for over five years. Object storage can be used as an active-archive tier of storage – where StorNext file storage is used for highest performance ingest and processing of data, object storage acts as lower cost online content repository, and tape acts as the lowest cost cold storage tier. In a diverse range of industries spanning media and entertainment, genomics and life sciences, autonomous vehicle research, and university research, ActiveScale can serve a number of use cases: Object storage in media production: Object storage is used as a long-term content repository for video content, in movie and TV production, in sports video, and even for large corporate video departments. Customers in movie and TV production require very high performance ingest, edit, processing, rendering of their video files, which typically is done with a file system like StorNext. Once content is finished, it is preserved in an object store, with StorNext data management handling the data movement between file and object tiers. Storage for video surveillance Object storage for enterprise archiving and long-term retention: As object storage has matured, all leading backup applications can now backup data to an object target, and enterprise IT departments are looking at object storage as a long-term content repository. Object storage for genomics and life sciences: Genomics sequencing and other life sciences research generates a massive amount of data, that must be processed and analyzed quickly (typically with a clustered file system like StorNext), then archived on object storage. Object storage for video surveillance: Object storage is also used as a tier for multi-petabyte surveillance infrastructure. Video is typically captured and recorded on higher-performance servers, then archived on object storage. Certified third-party object stores As Quantum returns to a growth path, we will be evaluating strategic acquisitions that bolster our technology portfolio" To serve the needs of these use cases and others, Quantum StorNext is certified with many leading public and private object stores today. With the addition of the ActiveScale product line, Quantum will remain committed to maintaining an open ecosystem of certified third-party object stores, with StorNext providing the ability to move data to these third-party object tiers. “As Quantum returns to a growth path, we will be evaluating strategic acquisitions that bolster our technology portfolio,” says Jamie Lerner, President and CEO, Quantum. "Object storage software is an obvious fit with our strategy, our go-to-market focus, and within our technology portfolio. We are committed to the product, and to making ActiveScale customers successful, and we look forward to engaging with them to solve their most pressing business challenges around storing and managing unstructured data. Erasure-coded object store software “With the addition of the engineers and scientists that developed the erasure-coded object store software, we can deliver on a robust technical roadmap, including new solutions like an object store built on a combination of disk and tape." "With Quantum’s resources, technical expertise and focus on solving customers’ challenges with managing video and other unstructured data, we believe ActiveScale will enable new value for customers,” said Phil Bullinger, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Western Digital’s Data Center business. “Western Digital and Quantum are each committed to continuity of support for existing ActiveScale customers.”