CHALLENGE: The Los Angeles Kings needed an IT infrastructure specifc to its video production eforts that Los Angeles Kings NHL Hockey Team could cost-efectively scale, while requiring minimal management resources. In addition to fnding a solution for newly created content, LA Kings Score a Hat-Trick with the Kings staf has a legacy to protect and archive, dating back Active Archive Solution nearly 50 years to 1967, the year of the team’s inception. Video is becoming increasingly vital to current pace, we generate about 32 to the competitive and business aspects 35 TB of new data per season.” of most media organizations, and as the In a world of 24-hour global online SOLUTION: Los Angeles Kings have increasingly business, success and failure some- Tape-based active archive leveraged content to assist its further times comes down to split-second consisting of: success, the team’s internal video pro- decisions that rely on vast amounts • Fujiflm StrongBox T30, also duction department has had to keep of critical data. In the sport of hockey, known as the Dternity S30 pace with an evolving set of demands. as in business, speed and strength are king. From September through with T30, 75 Terabytes of When Aaron Brenner, Director of licensed NAS capability June in downtown Los Angeles, Production, joined the Kings in 2008, hockey nights at STAPLES Center are • Connected to a 48-slot the franchise wasn’t generating or exhilarating experiences. The Los Crossroads tape library storing much video. “During the entire Angeles Kings, longtime leaders in 2007/2008 season, we generated the National Hockey League’s Western RESULTS/BENEFITS: about 100 GB of data,” said Brenner. Conference, have been setting the “In the following year, we doubled that course of technological innovation • Ease-of-use: The training amount, and during the 2011/2012 in the league, and serve as a bench- session required only 15 season, in which the Kings won the mark for other franchises in the fan minutes before the active Stanley Cup, we were generating entertainment realm. In addition to archive solution was set up about 7 TB of data per week. Today, multi-media entertainment during its and serving data we save about 200 GB per game, for at home games, the Kings organization • Signifcant cost reduction: least 82 games a season. At our extensively relies on video assets for CAPEX is reduced by leverag- unique activations with team part- ing the more cost-efective, ners, marketing and for its broadcast tape based solution, while afliation with Fox Sports. OPEX is driven down by simplifying ongoing storage As Brenner and team began evaluating management storage systems, they were impressed with the simplicity and scalability of an • Scalability: The Strongbox active archive system, which provides delivers cost-efective both standard data archiving and deep scalability as data volumes data storage. Since Brenner and his continue to increase team’s expertise is in video production • Greater peace-of-mind: The work, and not IT, they were attracted to team’s data is mirrored and the ease of confguration and manage- fully protected with of-site ment of the active archive solution. vaulting The LA Kings’ active archive solution includes a Fujiflm StrongBox T30, also storage tier. That way, only “hot” data known as the Dternity S30 with T30 and resides on the performance-oriented 75 terabytes of licensed NAS capability. An active archive was spinning disk storage tier, driving down overall storage costs. The open LTFS (Linear Tape File System) easy to digest and the architecture was also a key factor in concept was simple, even “We were spending too many man-hours the Kings’ decision. “For us to invest for a production-focused on storage management and too much in a long-term archiving solution, we money on storage capacity in the form needed to rely on a format that was truly group with no real IT of additional hard drives and LTO tape open source and non-proprietary,” said training. The learning drives,” explained Brenner. “In the past, Brenner. “Part of our strategy is plan- we simply couldn’t aford to save every- ning for formats that will stand the test curve for our non-technical thing, so we couldn’t guarantee that we of time, outlast its original hardware and staf is very short. In fact, would be able to save every epic we set it up on a Friday and highlight or goal.” “Today, we don’t have to worry about by Monday we were up deciding what to keep because we’re and running. able to save everything we need. Now, we can pull any angle of any shot from Aaron Brenner, Director of Production any game. It’s nice to know that in 100 years, the Kings’ production team will have access to these archives, including maintain data integrity for an extensive the original raw footage from the 2012 amount of time. The data we’re saving Stanley Cup Championship.” today is important to our brand, our part- ners and our fans now and in the future. LTFS covers our needs on all fronts.” The team was able to create an active ar- We’re unofcial team chive by standing a Dternity S30 behind its production Storage Area Network historians. The type of (SAN) as an archive appliance, allowing content we produce is for static data to be ofoaded from the wide-ranging, and SAN to the more economical tape-based includes everything from historical pieces on the team - Wayne Gretzky breaking NHL records, for example - as well as looking into the future,” said Brenner. “That’s why it’s extremely important we build a cutting-edge yet simple IT infrastructure to support that responsi- bility. And we need to do that within our CAPEX and OPEX budgets.

Photo/video session with the Stanley Cup with closeups of the team member’s names.