Cache-A BUZZ

In an effort to improve our product support worldwide, we have been training selected distributors in the finer points of troubleshooting and maintaining our products.  Just last week we hosted our Japanese distributor (ASK) and their associates, along with our rep company, Asia Media Products, in a full-day training event.

Delving deep into our Linux environment, attendees were taken through a host of Cache-A software tools and techniques for some of the issues encountered in Cache-A systems.  File system checks, disk and RAID integrity topped the list of issues we addressed.  Detecting physical tape damage, repairing table-of-contents issues and catalog rebuilds were also on the list.  We have a whole range of software procedures and specialized scripts that can address these kinds of issues, and all of our attendees were keen to pick up these skills.

Our support group deals with a variety of challenging issues every day here in Colorado, and we are always here to provide that service.  However, in international situations our support hours may not be convenient and there may be language barriers.  Providing this kind of training makes our in-country customer experience that much better.

In addition to the training, we enjoyed taking our visitors over to see our local bison herd and out to a noted Colorado restaurant for dinner.

Cache-A Colorado is situated at a scenic gateway to views of the front range along Interstate 70 and next to Genesee Park.  In 1914, Denver acquired bison and elk from the herds at Yellowstone Park, and took on a role in helping maintain these two species, then nearing extinction, at Genesee Park.

This training course was an example of how Cache-A is committed to continual improvement in our product support capabilities.

According to a very recent article by noted storage industry expert, Tom Coughlin in Forbes magazine, the impact of the monsoon floods in Thailand will be felt by the computer supply chain for many months to come.  It will likely impact the development of flash memory and magnetic tape for computer and enterprise storage applications.  Greater sales of dual storage computers and greater LTO tape sales will be likely consequences going into 2012.

An interesting possibility raised recently by some enterprise VARs (particularly in the Media and Entertainment market) is that increased hard disk drive (HDD) prices could be favorable for storage of long-term content on magnetic tape, particularly LTO tape with the LTFS file system.  Magnetic tape in tape libraries will be even less expensive than HDDs in coming months and at least going into 2012 there may be an uptick in the magnetic tape market as a consequence.

The full Forbes article can be read here.

Cache-A has certainly felt the brunt of rising disk prices as we scramble to assure an adequate supply of the hard disk drives we use to build our products.  Now that Power-Cache is rolling out with it built-in 8TB array, the shortage is having an even greater impact on our business.  Notwithstanding, we are currently holding the line on our List Prices and not passing the increases on to our customers. We hope to be able to maintain this stance.

I just returned from Washington DC where we participated in two classes our distributor (JB &A) had organized to teach our dealers’ technical people the ins and outs of the amazing CatDV digital asset management application from one of our solution partners, Squarebox Systems.  The week prior, Mark Ostlund had done the same for two additional classes held in San Rafael, CA.

Overall over 80 attendees learned how to install and configure CatDV, and to use CatDV with Cache-A systems.  Their software has been an up-and-coming asset management solution in its own right.  Now that Apple is no longer offering Final Cut Server, this has become the DAM solution of choice for Final Cut Pro users.  It also works well with Premier and Media Composer as well as mixed environments.

Squarebox was one of the first solution partners to utilize our API and offer integrated fully featured digital asset management layer on top of the Cache-A infrastructure.  They’ve recently enhanced the interface to include control over our Library option connected to Pro-Cache and Power-Cache systems.  We were very pleased to be able to share the stage and present our solution to an extremely high caliber audience.

We don’t usually see this time of year as a very active show season for us, but this year turned out to be a hot potato.

We’ve just completed a successful Inter BEE 2011 show at the Makuhara in Japan (we were in the ASK and Hoie Sangyo booth), and we will be heading in the opposite direction to the Government Video Expo in Washington, DC, November 30-December 1.   We’ll be in the Digital Video Group (DVG) Booth (#411) at GV Expo.

In between, we’ll take a few days off this week to give thanks.  We hope all of you also have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Expanding our trade show efforts this year, Cache-A is exhibiting at Broadcast India 2011 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon (E), Mumbai, India, today through October 22.  We are in the Genesis Forte Tech Pvt. Ltd. booth (E505).

Broadcast India showcases all aspects of the infotainment industry – from television, film, audio, radio, IPTV and mobile TV to computer graphics, visual effects, multimedia, music, lights, cable, satellite, broadband, Internet, transmission and more.  Last year, more than 26,000 visitors from around the world attended the show.

If you’re in that part of the world, we hope to see you at the show.

Mark Ostlund shows off Cache-A products at IBC

For the third year running, the Cache-A team jetted off to Amsterdam to attend the IBC Exhibition to showcase our new products.  As in prior years, we participated in our UK distributor’s stand, where we highlighted our flagship Pro-Cache5 product along with the up-and-coming Prime-Cache5 and the brand new Power-Cache model.

Customer interest was sky-high for the Power-Cache as the newest member of the Cache-A appliance lineup.  Attendees seemed particularly keen on the fact that it can control multiple tape drives simultaneously and can connect to a 10GB Ethernet backbone, which opens wide the data transfer pipeline.

We were also ably assisted by Guy Elliot, our newest European manufacturer’s representative at EMEA Gateway.  He also demoed Cache-A in his booth just a few meters away from us, with overflow traffic crowded around their Pro-Cache5.  We appreciate Guy’s support in helping us build our dealer network in EMEA.

We look forward to heading back to IBC in 2012.

We’re very excited about our return to IBC this year — we have a bunch of new products that we can’t wait for our customers to see!

WHAT: New High-Performance Power-Cache – Making its world debut at IBC 2011, our new Power-Cache high-performance server combines appliance functionality with more disk speed and better throughput.  Power-Cache provides faster archive and retrieval transfers as well as greater flexibility for staging content, making duplicate tape copies and working with Cache-A Library units.  A blend of LTO-5 tape drives, RAID and 10GbE, Power-Cache can control any combination of up to four LTO-5 drives in external expansion chassis or automated libraries.

New LTFS-Based Archive Appliances – At last year’s IBC, we were one of the first companies to demonstrate the new LTFS (Linear Tape Film System) format in product form.  This year at IBC, all of our LTO-5 based products include LTFS capability, including our flagship product, Pro-Cache5, the new high-performance Power-Cache and the quiet, desktop Prime-Cache5.  Cache-A archive appliances with LTFS combine the economy, robustness, high density and low power of tape with an open standard interchangeable tape format to provide a complete archive solution for the media and entertainment industry.

WHEN: September 9-13, 2011

WHERE: Cache-A – Stand 7.G16, IBC 2011, RAI Amsterdam

We look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam!

We have a lot of respect for Creative Cow’s peer-to-peer support community for digital media professionals.  So we are extremely pleased to hear that Cache-A received a Creative Cow Magazine Blue Ribbon Award for the category, Archive.  We were particularly please that the award was reported on by Bob Zelin, one of the most interested, involved and knowledgeable contributors to The Cow’s Forums.

Here’s what Bob says:

Cache-A’s mission is to make archiving easy by including all of the required hardware and software to provide a complete solution right out of the box.  Archiving to us means not only, preserving the assets of digital media professionals, but providing easy access to that content at any stage in their file based workflows.

We are honored to receive Creative Cow’s Blue Ribbon Award for Archive and would like to share our professional bliss with all involved in our industry.  Thanks for the support.