Technical Note: XTN901
Overview
Sienna™ is a family of software modules from Gallery/IEC that run on Apple Mac computers running OS X. The Sienna family of products create an efficient and fully integrated QuickTime and MOS based news workflow, designed to be utilized with MOS News Systems such as ENPS, alongside a Final Cut Pro based QuickTime media infrastructure. For more information about Sienna, visit http://www.sienna-tv.com.
When Sienna archives to a XenData digital video archive, video files are written to data tape – typically to LTO format tapes. A key aspect of the total Sienna – XenData solution is that it supports partial file restores.
This technical note describes how to configure the Sienna and XenData systems for best performance. The following aspects of the system should be specially configured.
- Create a SMB (NTFS) share on the XenData archive server to maximize the effective network transfer rate.
- Configure both Sienna and the XenData File Group rules to create a temporary file on the archive disk cache during the archive process. This ensures that the multiple file versions that are created by Sienna during the archive process are not written to tape. Only the final version is archived to tape.
Creating a SMB (NTFS) Share:
A registry change must be made to the server running XenData Archive Series software to make the archive server share appear as a standard SMB/CIFS share of a NTFS volume. Without this change, OS X client computers report the share as SMB (FAT) which is incorrect but makes no difference to performance when archiving and restoring with Finder. However, when archiving using Sienna or Quicktime, the transfer to archive is inefficient and slow because each time the file is extended, the OS X client writes zeros over the network before sending the correct data.
The registry change is made by adding a new string value to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/
CurrentControlSet/Services/XDFileSys/
This string must be named "FSNamePassthrough" and given a value "*". This is illustrated below:
Implementing a Temporary File Version
Sienna must be configured to create a temporary file on the archive during the writing process. After the file has been transferred, the Sienna software then renames the file from a ".tmp" to a ".mov". The XenData archive must be configured to write temporary files to disk cache only and to save ".mov" files to data tape.
To configure Sienna to create a temporary file, enable this option in MediaServices Preferences as illustrated below:
To configure the XenData archive to correctly handle the files from Sienna, create a folder called "Archive" at the root of the XenData volume and share this as a CIFS/SMB share and then configure the following two File Group rules using the XenData Management Console.
The first File Group rule applies to all ".tmp" files written to the Archive share and it ensures that these files are not saved to tape but are fragmented. Chose an appropriate fragment size such as 10 GB.
The second File Group rule applies to all data files including ".mov" files and it saves these to tape and then flushes them from disk cache. This rule must appear in the left pane of the XenData Management Console below the "Tmp" File Group rule. It is important that file fragmentation support settings are identical for both file group rules.
Applicable Operating Systems
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2019
Applicable XenData Software
This technical note is applicable to:
- Version 5 – Server Editions of Archive Series software
- Version 6 – Server Editions of Archive Series software
- Version 7 – Server Editions of Archive Series software including the Cloud File Gateway
PBS
XenData’s fully supported clustered server meets all the requirements for our disaster recovery site. We have been very pleased with the SX-525 product and XenData’s technical team who have provided system design and integration services above and beyond expectations.
James Cutright, Director, Project Management
PBS
Crew Cuts
I did my research, and the best archive solution was from XenData which manages a robotic LTO library behind the scenes. This helps to minimize our total costs and allows us to focus on producing great content for our customers.
Chris Keenan, CTO
Crew Cuts
Ideal Systems Singapore
We partnered with XenData for the GlobeCast Broadcast facility rollout, because it offers one of the most cost effective, robust digital video archives on the market and a great migration alternative to some of the more expensive digital video archive vendor offerings.
Fintan Mc Kiernan, CEO
Ideal Systems Singapore
North Shore Automation
Having completed over 25 joint installations of XenData archive systems, we have found everyone on the XenData team to be both highly professional and super responsive and their technology to be rock solid. They are truly a pleasure to work with.
Bryson Jones, Founder
North Shore Automation
This is Just a Test
With over 558 TB of content and growing, conventional backup solutions just don’t work for us. Our XenData system allows us to maintain an ongoing mirrored copy of our shared storage while creating replica LTO copies for offsite storage.
Nathan Flom
This is Just a Test
Excelencia
We have now installed over 170 XenData archive systems across Mexico and they have proven to be very reliable. In addition, the technical support from XenData has been outstanding.
Jorge Castaneda, President
Excelencia en Comunicaciones y Tecnología