Intelligent SME.tech Issue 20 | Page 22

? EDITOR ’ S QUESTION //

AS THE TIDES OF THE PANDEMIC
SLOWLY EBB , A NEW
TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM IS REVEALED : THE NEED TO SUPPORT THE HYBRID WORKFLOW .

L ong before a global pandemic forced a sudden reckoning of tools and methods , film and television workflows had already taken some early steps to bridge the divide that existed between the creatives in the field and the rest of their team in the facility .

For example , well before cloud-based SaaS platforms came into maturity , large media organisations established private point-topoint networks to create costly but highly performant hub-and-spoke webs that productions could leverage to transfer large video files from one work hub to another .
The largest facilities already had mature shared storage and workstation infrastructure in place . They were well-positioned to tack on the desktop sharing systems like Teradici , HP RGS , Jump , etc . that were becoming increasingly sophisticated and better tuned to the needs of remote content creation .
By the time the word ‘ COVID-19 ’ had become a household name , the largest enterprise organisations had a fighting chance since they had both the tech stack and the in-house expertise to respond to the productivity shock wave of March 2020 .
SMEs , however , were not quite as well prepared . And even larger enterprise-sized organisations were discovering that the existing tech stack and the prior decade of tinkering could not fully accommodate the massive scale that would ultimately embody the pandemic era and the ‘ new normal ’.
As the tides of the pandemic slowly ebb , a new technology problem is revealed : the need to support the hybrid workflow . Some teammates will return to the office , some will remain home and inevitably the tech stack will need to allow for both to co-exist , in a seamless way .
Will SMEs be able to respond to yet another topology and still enable creatives to work in a way that is comfortable and familiar ?
Cloud-based SaaS platforms may be able to help in some cases . But for media and entertainment workflows , for which extremely heavy video files are the norm , the new cloud on its own will not be enough .
Only a cloud solution that emulates the known and familiar on-premises shared storage workflows of mature facilities while offering the cloud ’ s near-infinite scale and wide-area connectivity will truly provide a path forward for the future .
LucidLink offers a cloud-native file system that provides a unique solution that enables organisations to access data from the cloud that supports both remote and hybrid work .
LucidLink functions like a local drive and allows users to access large files on-demand , directly in the cloud , using any application .
Teams collaborate in real-time with others across the globe without downloading or syncing data .
Since LucidLink looks and acts like a local drive , it naturally fits into users ’ workflows . Now teams can get to work on projects immediately , no matter where they are located and work with others across the globe .

MATT SCHNEIDER , DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT , M & E , LUCIDLINK

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