Xstream Increases Capacity to Provide Flexible Storage and Streaming Services for Its Online Video Customers
 
 

Xstream Increases Capacity to Provide Flexible Storage and Streaming Services for Its Online Video Customers

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Xstream A/S is a Danish online video services and end-to-end video management software provider. The company stores and streams online videos and movies provided by its telecommunications, cable TV broadcaster, and online media customers.

Because of rising customer demand for online videos and movies, Xstream wanted a storage solution that would meet its high requirements for performance, flexibility, availability, and scalability. It was crucial for the company to find a solution with network file system (NFS) capabilities, directly out-of-the-box, as well as very large and scalable amounts of cache memory.

Xstream chose two Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliances from Oracle, which enabled the company to expand its storage and streaming capacity in the quickly growing online video business. Oracle’s storage solution has the scalability to enable further expansion of disk space to keep up with the infrastructure demands of the company’s rapidly increasing online video traffic.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Xstream A/S

  • “Oracle’s storage solution, based on Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliances, made it possible for us to grow. Its flexibility enabled us to deliver greater storage performance, higher levels of availability and throughput, as well as new online video platforms to our telecommunications, cable-TV broadcaster, and online media customers.” – Frank Thorup, Chief Executive Officer, Xstream A/S

  • Keep up with rising customer demand for online videos
  • Increase storage capacity reliably and flexibly so that Xstream’s telecommunications, cable TV broadcaster, and online media customers and end users will not even be aware of a storage system in the background, although thousands of end users are accessing the media simultaneously
  • Deploy more disk space and very large and scalable amounts of cache memory to provide the redundancy, high availability, and high throughput required to support online video traffic
  • Obtain NFS capability, out-the-box. to ensure compatibility with the company’s existing NFS technology

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Deployed two Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliances, which are based on NFS technology, to replace a legacy, custom, FreeBSD storage system
  • Expanded available disk space from an initial level of 30 terabytes to 60 terabytes, providing ample storage capacity for constantly increasing online video traffic
  • Ensured further possibilities for storage capacity expansion with the option to add extra disk shelves to provide up to 600 terabytes of available storage space―equal to the space required by 60,000 online movies
  • Provided a reliable, high-performance, high-availability storage and streaming service that will not let the company’s customers and their end customers down
  • Provided a smooth and efficient service to end customers with a storage system that puts the most recent videos into cache memory and keeps them there automatically
  • Ensured an uninterrupted service level with an Oracle Premier Support for Systems agreement

Why Oracle

“Ninety percent of all internet traffic in 2014 will, according to some estimates, consist of online videos,” said Frank Thorup, chief executive officer, Xstream A/S. “From an infrastructure perspective, this places high demands on the storage solution we use. We looked at other systems, but either cost, amounts of cache, or single storage pool capacity prevented them from being competitive. Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance really is an ‘all-in-one’ solution feature-wise, and exactly what we needed to address all our needs.”

Implementation Process

Xstream went live with the storage solution in January 2012. According to Indes, the company that carried out the implementation, it only took a day-and-a-half to set up, install, and configure this large, highly available storage system.

Partner

Xstream used a Danish company called Indes A/S for consultancy, implementation, and training.

“Indes is a small, highly skilled, and very flexible infrastructure company that focuses on storage, virtualization, and networking,” said Mark Nellemann, head of IT operations, Xstream A/S. “It has some very large customers in Denmark, where it advises on, sells, and implements its customers’ core infrastructures. Indes did the research to find the optimal storage solution for us, and it was on Indes’ recommendation that we chose Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance.”

“This case is a perfect example of the benefits a rapidly growing, small company can gain from making the right decision when going from no-name, small-scale systems to serious, large scale infrastructure and storage,” said Tue Wolff Madsen, consultant, Indes A/S. “Using an all-in-one system—like one based on Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance—companies can start small but scale almost indefinitely.”

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