Advanced Television

Masstech offers instant migration to EMC Avalon users affected by EOL

October 21, 2010

Broadcasters affected by EMC AVALON storage software End of Life (EOL) risk losing valuable digital assets as technical support for AVALON products ceases at the end of October this year. The challenge lies in quickly migrating digital assets to a supported platform while making sure stored assets are still available for use.

Masstech, the leading global provider of media asset management solutions (MAM), is offering AVALON users an instant migration pathway that will transfer and archive all content from legacy data tapes to its TOPAZ MAM system in a day. AVALON users are guaranteed a swift and smooth transition with minimal impact on existing broadcast operations.

Joe French, President and CEO of Masstech Group said: “Masstech recognizes the far-reaching implications for AVALON users and the disastrous impact that data loss can have on the bottom line. We are committed to helping all AVALON users facilitate a smooth and easy migration to TOPAZ. Masstech is the only company in the market that offers an intelligent archiving solution capable of natively reading the AVALON tapes and restoring content to the required destinations instantly. Apart from preserving and protecting valuable digital assets, companies also have the added advantage of accessing available data for immediate use.”

As the end of October is fast approaching, companies need to act fast – any media assets stored in the AVALON archive and database will go unprotected. With no technical support, if the Avalon system fails, chances of data recovery are slim.  Other vendors do not offer a complete, clean migration or address the full impact on AVALON users. They simply restore content from AVALON into a watch folder and then transfer files one by one from it. This long and tedious process creates additional workload for operational staff who have to manage two systems concurrently, wasting precious time and resources.

5 reasons to migrate to Masstech’s TOPAZ

Migrating to Masstech’s TOPAZ digital archiving system will keep day-to-day broadcast operations running smoothly while managing risk, trimming costs, and protecting media assets for the future.
– Content is immediately available for restore or recall – TOPAZ reads the existing AVALON written tapes and efficiently drives content in the existing library without requiring time-consuming or complex operations. The migration is transparent, preserving 100 percent of the existing workflow.
– Enables instant migration to protect your valuable assets – Migrating content to TOPAZ only takes a day. Other migration solutions take months or even years.
– Avoid dual system hassle – Eliminate the need to keep two systems running while doing a laborious migration. Companies can shut down the AVALON system as soon the migration procedure is completed. Unlike solutions offered by other vendors, there is no need to keep both AVALON and TOPAZ operational to control the automation of digital content. Companies can work with files stored on TOPAZ straight away.
– Increase performance with faster transcoding – TOPAZ has a smart, Hi-Q inbuilt transcoding engine, delivering the ultimate performance in content transformation from the archive to any new media format. Companies do not require third party solutions to accomplish content format migration.
– Migrate multiple formats at no extra cost – In some instances, customers may need to replace playout video servers in order to migrate content from AVALON to different formats. TOPAZ reduces capital and operational expenses by offering this option within its migration plan at no additional cost and free storage (no license fees).

Masstech has helped leading companies such as KCTS, WNET and EWTN realize the benefits of migrating their content from Avalon to TOPAZ while reducing risks of data loss and unnecessary costs.

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