In an exclusive interaction with Dataquest, Khalid Wani, MD, Western Digital talks about storage in Media & Entertainment industry and how multi-storage solutions help workflow in the film making process and what measures does the company takes to enable data protection. Excerpts:

What kind of Storage does Western Digital offer to Media and Entertainment industry?

Storage requirements of the Media & Entertainment industry are very different from IT industry. The performance requirements such as real-time video in capture, editing, post-production and distribution, demanded by organizations in the M&E industry are unique. With the advent of technology, the post production techniques have also become more complex as there is a greater reliance on visual (VFX) and special effects requiring high capacities and smooth editing of data directly from the storage device. The important aspect for professionals in a creative filed is the protection of their data without having to compromise on ease of access and use. WDC is committed to address the fundamental challenges by providing high capacity, fast performance, reliability and a wide range of purpose-built storage solutions to choose from.

How has multi storage solution helped accelerate workflows in the film making process?

The volume of digital content produced by media companies is growing rapidly, driven by the number of simultaneous projects, higher resolution, and the proliferation of mobile and social consumption platforms. Organizations are struggling to keep up with this growth and waste a significant amount of time and money searching for, then often failing to find their media assets. This is especially true with teams at differently locations around the world.

Conventional media workflows and infrastructure can present many challenges that can impact success in a global environment. Content ingest, edit and play-out are still fairly linear, and self-contained systems are still the norm. In some cases, media assets are organized and managed on individual hard drives. As a result, storage and media asset management present some of the biggest pain points media organizations have today. Many producers, broadcasters and media distribution businesses are facing the limitations of using legacy storage infrastructure that is difficult to manage and scale, causing workflow delays.

We work with media businesses to help streamline and accelerate production workflows and provide long-term archival strategies. media workflow solution helps companies simplify and accelerate the most sophisticated postproduction workflows, while reducing the total cost of ownership. The solution is easy to learn, deploy and manage, with the flexibility to let teams work in familiar ways. The use of standard file and cloud interfaces makes it easy to integrate into existing environments with support for wide range of popular applications.

Data protection is an issue; how do you deal with it in storage? What measures do you take to enable data protection for storagee?

Western Digital Corporation is an industry-leading provider of storage technologies and solutions that enable people to create, leverage, experience and preserve data. The company addresses ever-changing market needs by providing a full portfolio of compelling, high-quality storage solutions with customer-focused innovation, high efficiency, flexibility, speed and most importantly security. We offer several protection features as we understand the importance of data and losing the same can be troublesome. Features such as Auto Backup and Password Protection helps protect data on the device.

What is GTM strategy for India?

India is a very big and exciting market for us. From a market, enterprise and surveillance perspective – India is very critical market for us.Our company has such set of products, that are able to address a lot of multi segment industries in India. For us, we continue to have a strong strategy in place for our consumer channels, enterprise channels and surveillance channels.

Who all are your customers (preferably in India)?

Western Digital caters to the needs of players from various industries and Media & Entertainment is a key growth areas for us. We work with best production houses in the industry and Red Chilies Entertainment and Fox Studios are a few such example with whom we have collaborated on multiple occasions for all their storage needs. We provide storage products and solutions that support every stage of the workflow for the media and entertainment industry.