Jonathan Morgan, senior vice president of product and technology at Perifery, discusses the company’s R&D outlook as part of our series looking into the product development landscape in the broadcast market.
What impact has the pandemic and its continuing aftereffects had on the company’s approach to R&D and product development?
The pandemic accelerated the rollout of cloud solutions as the world moved to remote working. However, post-pandemic there is an emphasis on not being confined to running in a cloud data centre. In particular, Perifery is addressing three post-pandemic needs. Firstly, the need for on-premises solutions that can scale as the cloud does, but with economics and performance that support active archives. Secondly, by providing management that seamlessly joins up data, metadata, and services across hybrid workflows. Thirdly, the need for edge-based solutions that pre-process large amounts of data with services and AI where it is being generated.
What are the biggest challenges you are facing in R&D and product development/deployment in the current landscape?
The race to the cloud during the global remote working surge has caused a number of challenges for media companies. Vendors are now working on solutions that will provide organisations with more control and better data transparency. Many media companies adopted cloud solutions that are, by their nature, very restrictive. But by processing data in place where possible, being more strategic about storage tiers, and avoiding vendor lock-in, we can tailor cloud and hybrid storage to specific needs.
Where do you see the most opportune areas for innovation in your area of the market, and what tech/solutions will drive that development?
Two of the most opportune areas for innovation are connected. The first is open asset data management, that can efficiently manage data across multiple online and cloud tiers of storage, and the second is data gravity. In terms of data gravity, we all know that the most efficient way to process data is to process it in-situ. Massive amounts of data are now being created at the edge, and this is the place to process the data, along with services and with AI.
What are you working on currently that excites you as a product team, and what can we expect to see at IBC 2023?
Perifery is planning to show the latest products in object storage and edge at IBC. As far as on-premises is concerned, Perifery leads with Object Matrix for the media industry, a unique object storage product that offers scalable storage with s3 API, file system, and web browsing of assets. At the edge, Perifery is showcasing its new Transporter product that provides the strongest levels of edge storage protection, an s3 interface and the ability to move data to core or cloud.
