Media Shuttle with Cloud Object Storage
Signiant’s newest Media Shuttle option allows customers to use their cloud object storage tenancy in Amazon S3 and/or Microsoft Azure Blob storage in a Media Shuttle deployment.
There are several reasons this might be of interest:
➜ Large-scale data migration:
If your company is undertaking a large-scale migration to the cloud and want storage compatibility for all storage-intensive applications.
➜ Cost-effective storage:
If you want to take advantage of the elasticity of the cloud for a specific Media Shuttle project, such as file movement for a major event. ‘Renting’ cloud storage rather than buying on-premises storage might be a far more cost-effective option.
➜ Cloud storage at the center of a workflow:
If cloud storage is a the center of a media workflow, without Media Shuttle there is really no way for end users to easily and intuitively move content into and out of cloud storage.
➜ The fastest and easiest deployment option:
You may want a solution that is even easier to deploy than standard Media Shuttle. As described below, an object storage deployment of Shuttle takes Signiant’s cloud-formed SaaS strategy one step further and eliminates even more burden on the IT department.
This version of Media Shuttle borrows features and capabilities from Signiant’s other SaaS product, Flight, a utility designed for bulk upload/downloads of large files to/from cloud object storage. Specifically, it implements both the control plane and the data plane as true, cloud-formed, multi-tenancy SaaS solutions. With an object storage Media Shuttle deployment the Signiant SaaS control layer continues to provide control functions, but now the data layer is also in the cloud, where auto-scaling, redundant and load balanced file transfer servers are hosted and maintained by Signiant and connected to the customer’s cloud object storage tenancy. The system architecture is illustrated in the figure below:
No need to manage storage, servers or software
This multi-tenant, auto-scaling, SaaS implementation frees the customer from the need to buy, deploy and manage their own storage, servers and software, thereby reducing even further both the initial CAPEX investment and the IT staff’s workload. Customers are free to use more than one cloud storage provider, or to continue with their standard on-premises deployment, or to mix both on-premises and cloud object storage portals within a single Media Shuttle deployment.
It is important to note that some Media Shuttle customers have always chosen to deploy their systems in the cloud. However, this was previously accomplished by the customer installing and managing the file transfer server software on virtual machines that they themselves purchased from the cloud platform vendor. Like any other “cloud-washed” approach, this method leaves the system administration and maintenance responsibility for the data plane with the client, and fails to truly leverage the scalability, elasticity, resilience, or performance of a true multi-tenancy SaaS solution.
Lacking a true data plane integration to the provider’s cloud storage, such deployments further restrict the customer to only being able to utilize the cloud provider’s more expensive block storage, and not their cheaper, more scalable, object storage, which is generally more optimal for storing large amounts of unstructured data. Customer deployments of standard Media Shuttle in the cloud therefore do enjoy the benefits deriving from the SaaS nature of Media Shuttle’s control plane, but not the advantages of a cloud-formed data plane SaaS.
Media Shuttle with cloud object storage is priced and packaged with the same tiered subscription model as standard Media Shuttle. Customers choose a tier based on the number of active users in a given month, with price per user declining as the number of users increases. Each user tier now also includes, at no extra charge, a baseline volume of content that can be moved to/from the cloud each month. “Pay-as-you-go” overage prices are specified for
both users and payload for each tier.
Customers looking to deploying Media Shuttle for “hands-on” file movement to object storage in the cloud may also have a parallel use case for more automated bulk upload/download capabilities to/from the same cloud storage tenancy. Signiant recommends that they consider adding Flight to their technology ecosystem to meet this need. Flight is a simple utility that can be controlled via a CLI (Command Line Interface); or connected directly into a Signiant Manager+Agents installation via a pre-built workflow component.
