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FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 10:11:

Where is my data actually stored?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 10:05 to the question "What is a MatrixStore object?" in Object Matrix:

All data archived to MatrixStore is stored conceptually as ‘Objects’.

Each Object has 3 components; the data, meta-data and policies.

Data
This is the actual data itself, as it would normally be stored on any other file system. An important fact to note here is that MatrixStore does NOT change the format of the data on the disk. MatrixStore does not change, alter or store your
data in a proprietary format.

Meta-data
This is descriptive information about the Data. It could be the artist, album, title, length or genre information about a music file, or could be co-ordinates, type, range, date etc. about a satellite image file. This meta-data can be any key/value pair that the application deems suitable and useful for object retrieval at a later date. It is also possible to update attributes on an object at a later date which is useful to add extra context to an asset over its lifetime.

Policies
Policies This is the information about how the data should be stored, such as the number of copies, the retention period and the access permissions.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 10:01:

What is a MatrixStore object?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:25 to the question "Can we also have Tape Libraries as a part of MatrixStore archival storage ?" in Object Matrix:

Tape is becoming increasingly less appropriate for use as an archival medium in creative industries.

If you feel you must then data can be pulled out of MatrixStore and put onto the SAN from where the customer has a choice to put the data where they want it.

Data sat on a tape or DVD is not compatible with an online archiving strategy.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:22:

Can we also have Tape Libraries as a part of MatrixStore archival storage ?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:21 to the question "Can one MatrixStore node have multiple Xserve RAIDS connected to one Xserve?" in Object Matrix:

Just to recap :

MatrixStore node = CPU + Disk or Disks

At the moment there is a one to one relationship between Xserve and XSR.

We do have an item in our roadmap however to extend this to 2 XSR per xserve (with the new 4 port Fibre Channel Card becoming so much cheaper)

There are good reasons (which are open for debate!) why do not have 4 or 10 XSR to one Xserve, a few being:

- Data protection. MatrixStore will re-protect all the data on a failed node. If that node has half a Petabyte hanging off it then the recovery time will be weeks or months.
- Performance, We do not want people queuing up to get their data because the system is choked by too few access points.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:19:

Can one MatrixStore node have multiple Xserve RAIDS connected to one Xserve?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:18 to the question "Is it possible to access MatrixStore through a web browser?" in Object Matrix:

Any application that integrates to the MatrixStore API can read, search etc so building a web layer to view the data is absolutely possible.

Integration to the MatrixStore API is a very simple process and should take no longer than a couple of days work to get a working prototype for a competent C or Java engineer.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:16:

Is it possible to access MatrixStore through a web browser?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:15 to the question "Does the solution handle Proxy generation and display results using proxy while originals are available on final download." in Object Matrix:

MatrixStore is an archive. It can store and serve any file format so yes originals and proxies can reside in the cluster.

It is the job of the DAM application like Artbox to generate proxies and store them in MatrixStore. Proxy generation could be added as a roadmap item to DropSpot should the need arise.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:14:

Does the solution handle Proxy generation and display results using proxy while originals are available on final download.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:13 to the question "Where is all the metadata stored ? Can this be stored in a separate storage than along with the Video Files ? Can the metadata be stored in a Commercial database like SQL or Oracle apart from open source ones like MySQL or Postgres?" in Object Matrix:

The Metadata in MatrixStore is stored and protected on the same disk as the video content ensuring that you will always be able to find your data.

MatrixStore does not have an SQL interface, all data and metadata flows throught the API. However, a client application could use an SQL DB (hosted separately) which contains metadata and MatrixStore object IDs. The object Id could then be used to lookup the binary data in the MatrixStore Archive.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:10:

Where is all the metadata stored ? Can this be stored in a separate storage than along with the Video Files ? Can the metadata be stored in a Commercial database like SQL or Oracle apart from open source ones like MySQL or Postgres?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:09 to the question "Does the API support Unicode metadata tags and can this be scaled for catering to multiple Indian languages" in Object Matrix:

Yes and Yes

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:08:

Does the API support Unicode metadata tags and can this be scaled for catering to multiple Indian languages

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:07 to the question "Can the searchable metadata be customised, i.e. Instead of searching for regular things like Type, Date, size, can this be modified as per each customer’s need ?" in Object Matrix:

MatrixStore supports any type of Metadata.

DropSpot supports plugins to automagically strip certain embedded metadata from some data types. These plugins can be extended to take metadata from any file type or format such as a Final Cut project file so that all assets in that project are tagged with relevant, useful information.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:03:

Can the searchable metadata be customised, i.e. Instead of searching for regular things like Type, Date, size, can this be modified as per each customer’s need ?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 20, 2007 09:02 to the question "How can a user enter metadata?" in Object Matrix:

The user must use an application like DropSpot or Artbox to add metadata to data in a MatrixStore archive.

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, asked a question in Object Matrix on November 20, 2007 09:00:

How can a user enter metadata?

FAQ, an employee of Object Matrix, replied on November 19, 2007 21:56 to the question "Does MatrixStore run on a SAN?" in Object Matrix:

Nope.

A SAN is the place for work in progress, MatrixStore the end game.

Your SAN should be big enough for your working requirements and only just big enough so that it can be kept manageable and performant.

SAN architectures are not suitable archive solutions. They are complex and costly to manage and time consuming to maintain.

SANs should be kept small and effective, data should then be moved off onto more appropriate, more robust and secure solutions such as MatrixStore for long term archival.

MatrixStore can grow and grow with no management overhead or performance degradation.