Linney’s new storage architecture includes EditShare 20TB SSD nodes, online servers and an off-site nearline system, with software that manages content and directly connects post tools.
Linney, based in Mansfield in central England, develops marketing content for commercial clients that include well-known global brands. Starting with art direction and brand strategy, Linney customises campaigns for its clients to engage customers, including material for social media, in-store displays and out-of-home digital signage.
Interestingly, the company’s heritage began in print manufacturing in 1851 and printing services remain the core of the business – although Linney is now a diverse, large-scale communications group. As well as websites and apps, its digital team specialise in AR/VR experience, UX and UI design and mobile-first development. The company also has video production crews and a 2D/3D animation team.
Replacement Storage System
Linney’s comprehensive range of services, which extend to marketing systems like digital asset management and templates, reporting and analytics, and multichannel publishing, make heavy demands on their storage capacity and capabilities. Up until recently, the company’s teams worked through a proprietary, central storage platform that had reached the end of its supported life and needed replacing. Their priorities for a new system included the ability to access material from multiple locations, as well as hosting in-house editing, grading and finishing suites.
Linney worked with specialist reseller and systems integrator Tyrell on defining the requirements and developing the system. Consequently, Tyrell specified EditShare storage with an architecture that includes three 20 TB SSD nodes, two 128 TB EFS-300 online storage servers, and a 300 TB EFS-40NL nearline storage system, running on the software required to manage the content and the flows between devices. The nearline storage node is located in a separate building to give the installation a level of resilience.
Direct Connection
Critical to the success of the installation is the ability to directly connect post-production tools. The facility includes a number of editing, grading and finishing suites running Avid Media Composer and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve. Producers and directors also access the shared storage from their laptops over the office network, which allows them to make rough cuts of the content in preparation for the craft editors. The EditShare environment’s ability to support all of these functions is vital for Linney.
“Our business is about creating and delivering exciting content that enhances the brand values of our clients,” said Andy Dawson, Lead Editor at Linney. “We really need our storage platform to simply run in the background and do exactly what we need it to do, so our teams can focus all of their energy on telling stories. Ultimately, this is EditShare’s brand value, and Tyrell showed us how we could implement a system that would serve us well as we continue to develop our business over the coming years.”
Configurable
Simon Wocka, Account Manager for Cloud and Solution Sales at Tyrell, noted “Our first role in this was to listen to what the customer was really saying. We knew they weren’t looking for a like-for-like replacement for their old shared storage, and by understanding what Linney’s business goals are, we could propose a solution that puts them in a really good place."
Said Bacho, Chief Revenue Officer at EditShare, said, “The complete system is adaptable and can be configured to the way a team wants to work. It includes a lot of practical tools on the platform, like transcoding, and allows direct access to post production tools. Linney wanted simplicity in operation, efficiency and speed, and this EditShare installation brings all of that and scope for more later on.”
The first phase of the system was installed and handed over in mid-2023. As Linney has appointed Port-P to manage all of its IT services, Tyrell sold the EditShare system to Port-P, who will manage it on Linney’s behalf. The contract includes five years of hardware and software support by Tyrell on behalf of EditShare. Linney and Tyrell continue to work together to implement further functionality to meet client demand.
www.editshare.com
