Media search and management company Axle AI has joined forces with object storage and data lake vendor Cloudian to offer a hybrid system that “ensures data sovereignty, reduces costs and simplifies media workflows.”
Axle AI’s customer roster includes Turner, the BBC, Paramount, Facebook, Patagonia, Madison Square Garden, NBC, Amazon, Canon, and Radio City.
With the combined solution, users can store their data either on-prem or in the cloud, while maintaining single-point management and unified media search. Using AI-powered tools, the solution catalogs, manages, and searches media across on-prem and cloud-based storage for “simple and immediate access,” the companies said in a joint statement.
“As users seek to optimize data sovereignty, security, and storage costs, they are increasingly looking to balance their use of on-prem and cloud-based compute and storage platforms,” they added.
Cloudian’s says its hybrid data lake offers limitless on-prem media capacity that can be situated anywhere, plus cloud integration that facilitates policy-driven data management across both cloud and on-prem platforms.
Cloudian’s full S3 API compatibility is meant to simplify the process of migrating workflows between cloud and on-prem environments. This allows users to leverage existing S3 API-based media, tools, and applications while refining their infrastructure strategy in a bid to reduce costs.
Axle AI’s media asset management software generates searchable metadata based on advanced AI techniques including speech transcription, face recognition, and object/logo identification. Integrated review and approval workflows in the Axle AI browser frontend, as well as a panel for Adobe’s Premiere Pro application, enable “seamless” post-production workflows.
With “military-grade” security, Cloudian ensures the protection of media assets from unauthorized access and ransomware threats. And an intuitive interface across both Axle AI and Cloudian systems “significantly reduces the learning curve,” said the companies, the aim being to let all levels of staff to quickly adapt and enhance productivity.
“The power of AI is transforming the way media professionals interact with their content,” said Sam Bogoch, CEO of Axle AI. “By integrating our AI-driven metadata tagging and search capabilities with Cloudian’s robust data lake, we are simplifying access and management of media files to a degree that was previously unimaginable.”
Michael Tso, CEO of Cloudian, added: “Our hybrid data lake allows media assets to be located anywhere, while remaining fully interoperable with existing S3-compatible tools. By collaborating with Axle AI, we now make those assets instantly searchable, both on-prem and in the cloud, with the power of AI.”
The complete combined system is now available through Axle AI, Cloudian, and authorized resellers.
Last month, Cloudian announced support for AWS Mountpoint for Amazon S3, an open source file client. The enhancement allows data stored on Cloudian data lakes to be mounted as local file systems with high-throughput access, enabling Cloudian users to leverage object storage system Cloudian HyperStore through a familiar file interface.
Common use cases for AWS Mountpoint include large-scale machine learning, autonomous vehicle simulation, genomic analysis, data ingest (ETL), and image rendering.
