M+E Connections

There are a lot of different “cloud” services, and I don’t put it in quotations to be dismissive. Rather, we should realize there are different definitions depending on what our priorities are.

For example, there are several emerging ideas as to what “camera to cloud” means. One definition would be capturing the content on local drives and then quickly pushing a proxy version to the cloud for editing and collaboration.

Another definition would be capturing live, full resolution video directly to a cloud storage system. Both have merit but one may have more value to you than the other depending on your workflow.

For LucidLink, the cloud facilitates uninhibited content creation regardless of where the content is in relation to the creatives.

No longer must the work be near the worker.

As companies around the world are adapting to permanent remote or hybrid type work, LucidLink Filespaces become a key solution in the new normal.

How we access content is changing. By the end of 2021, remote workers will represent 32 percent of all employees. Cloud usage and workflows will continue to increase and some of the most used services will include Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox.

These types of services are called “sync and share” because they all offer the ability to synchronize content in the cloud and provide access to teams of people.

These solutions are simple to use, work with any program, globally accessible and can scale to any size.

Then why aren’t more companies using these with creative media? Part of the answer is that few people would call these solutions fast.

Solutions like these utilize replication or copying of the content to every user, and it takes time for files to get up to the cloud and then more time for it to trickle down to the others who have access.

With LucidLink, we provide instant access to the content with no waiting for copying files to many users’ computers. Changes to a folder on a LucidLink Filespace happen instantly while you watch. There is an added benefit here as well: LucidLink provides a “single source of truth” that everybody has access to. One storage location for all users regardless of location.

This is important for a couple of reasons.

First, it removes the chances of duplicate files because everyone can see and search across the Filespace. Second, the single source of truth helps facilitate collaborative workflows whether designed like a MAM or ad hoc within your team. For example, multiple people can work on a Premiere Pro project through Adobe’s Team Projects or Productions technology and that only happens because all the data is in a single location.

Finally, companies can hire the best people and not worry about where they are located.

Accessibility, and more importantly, the immediacy to the content can vary widely. This is a fundamental advantage that LucidLink brings to customers.

LET’S TURN OUR ATTENTION TO THE IDEA OF SCALE.

One of the very best aspects of moving content to the cloud is the ability to increase your storage on-demand.

Not only is it infinitely scalable, but you are only charged for what you use.

This has huge implications as more and more companies move away from capital expenditures. Many companies have purchased large racks of storage that provided fast access and performance throughout the building or network.

Ensuing productivity increases. However, as time passes, the storage pool becomes full, and companies are faced with how to add on to the system or bring in something new entirely.

Both choices can become costly decisions.

The world will always need more storage and the world’s appetite for more is increasing, but until the cloud came along, you couldn’t easily add capacity on-demand.

However, with some solutions, replication can still be an issue and your drive is getting filled up without you even knowing it. With object storage systems, when you want to retrieve something, you are egressing the entire file and therefore being charged a fee to do so.

Using a LucidLink Filespace and an object storage platform like IBM, AWS, GCP, Azure or others, you have the scalability of the cloud, but only pay for what you use.

You are not weighed down with replicated files or being forced to egress (download) the entire file if you don’t need it.

Here’s an example: If I have a 10-minute long clip that I need to get ten seconds from to cut into a shorter piece, I have to egress the entire clip in order to get those ten seconds.

If that file is 10GB in size, not only do I lose time, but I am paying a fee to access my content! In contrast, accessing the same file through LucidLink, you only access the content you need, and the egress is a small fraction of what you would have had otherwise.

As the cloud continues to mature, I believe we will be able to scale up storage as we need it, transparently. Egress is ultimately a dead end. Companies will only pay for what they use — whether an increase in storage size or when you need to access your data.

One size doesn’t fit all, and every solution will inevitably have its pros and cons.

** By Dennis Radeke, Director, Sales, LucidLink **

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