Archive solution used to preserve BFI’s digital library of British film history and make it available to the public

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The BFI has commissioned a new storage solution to preserve its huge archive of British film history.

The BFI has commissioned OvationData to deploy two Spectra 950 Tape Libraries and two Spectra BlackPearl Converged Storage Systems, as part of its Unlocking Film Heritage digitisation project.

Since 2012, the Unlocking Film Heritage project has seen over 10,000 films from the BFI and UK regional and national film archives digitised and made available to the public 

The project required a new storage solution that would integrate with existing and future workflow applications, accommodate predicted data growth, and reliably protect the organisation’s assets. The BFI team was also concerned about being locked into a single vendor’s media roadmap.

The Spectra Logic deployment integrated with the BFI’s media asset management application – Imagen.

The BFI’s four-frame T950 tape library is configured with LTO-6 drives and media, and its dual-frame T950 tape library with IBM® TS1150 tape technology, providing media diversity thanks to multiple tape formats, and eliminating future roadmap worries associated with implementing a single technology.

“The Spectra Logic T950 tape libraries and BlackPearl systems have enabled us to create a content strategy to preserve digital assets for the long-term,” said BFI head of data and digital preservation Stephen McConnachie.