Sun Microsystems has announced a first-of-its-kind digital programming repository to stage and manage video programme content for 15 HBO and Cinemax networks over the next three years.

HBO's goal is to move from a tape/server based platform to a fully digital server architecture while maintaining the 99.999 per cent reliability of traditional playout mechanisms. This digital repository solution will reduce cost and increase HBO's overall operational efficiency.

With interconnectivity to its digital "to-air" broadcast content, HBO's digital programming repository takes advantage of Sun's cost effective enterprise servers and storage solutions, Java technology and custom applications designed to meet HBO's demanding throughput, reliability and growth requirements.

An official release informs that HBO's digital programming repository is a leading example of the broadcast industry's move from tape-based systems to digital storage for to-air content. The digital programming repository includes five terabytes (TB) of fully redundant storage, growing to 50 TBs, for a total of 5,000 hours of content. It sustains a constant data rate of more than 300 megabytes (MB) per second to HBO's suite of Grass Valley Group Profile XP-based playout systems using fibre channel interconnections. This state-of-the-art system can support a peak of 900 MB per second in recovery mode allowing HBO to deliver content to-air without a reduction in playout bandwidth while completely restoring the repository within a single broadcast day.

The digital programming repository system for HBO consists of two Sun Fire 6800 servers to manage and stage content and two Sun StorEdge 9980 systems, that provide complete availability, installed in a mirrored configuration. The Sun StorEdge QFS high-performance file-system provides the scalability needed to store large files created by programme-length video, the performance necessary to meet HBO's demanding throughput goals and precluded the need for an expensive, traditional tape backup architecture.

The release states that Sun's Java technology ensures cross-platform compatibility and aligns with HBO's strategy to develop its Video Network systems in the Java programming language. Combined with the powerful and highly available Sun Fire Midframe servers, this complete solution provides the performance, ease of management and flexibility required in today's digital media environment.