The ABC predicts it will need more than 21 petabytes of storage capacity by 2021.
The national broadcaster is seeking vendors to supply storage hardware and management software so it can ready itself for future demand, which is being driven by video.
“Over the last five years there has been a dramatic increase in storage growth predominantly in broadcast video media,” the tender document, released yesterday, notes. “The media industry has moved away from analogue tape into digital based technologies, many new storage challenges and requirements have evolved.
“These changes now confront the ABC with new business challenges around digital media management, lifecycle and the cultural change associated with the industry movement.”
The broadcaster said the storage it required was growing at a ‘rapid rate’ and by 2021, if trends continued, would amount to 7.5PB of configured disk space and 14 PB of data on tape.
The broadcaster rolled out SAN storage in 2003, predominantly at its headquarters in Ultimo, Sydney. A smaller SAN and NAS infrastructure is deployed in the capital cities, with regional sites now beginning to use smaller NAS infrastructure.
The current environment comprises around 4.5PB of configured disk storage and 9PB of data on tape. Storage arrays and NAS appliances are currently supplied by Hitachi Data Systems and NetApp, with a storage fabric from Brocade and Oracle Storagetek tape libraries.
The upgrade to its storage is part of a major reworking of the ABC’s electronic, computing, Internet and archival facilities. The first of a number of tenders was issued in May for a digital archive repository system for the corporation’s content services operations.
Work on the storage expansion is due to commence in December this year.