"Fast access to and efficient management of data, and hardware, and particularly software innovations, such as Tiger Technology’s metaSAN, are the catalysts for success in today’s collaborative, heavy-bandwidth work environments."

 

Robi Roncarelli, Market Analyst, PIXEL Inc.

"I am giving metaSAN five stars! If I ever end up working in another facility that needs to implement a SAN, I will definitely recommend it. I’d also recommend it to anyone involved in video that needs a file-level sharing SAN."

 

Joe Kirby, Assistant Chief Engineer, FOX 54 – WZDX TV

"With metaSAN/metaLAN in place, every artist has instant access to data by simply clicking on the local hard drive in “My Computer” – and all this without having to perform sophisticated network administration."

 

Alex Rizov, FX Supervisor, Topform Studio

"I recommend metaSAN to anyone investigating a shared storage solution, especially to anyone Final Cut Pro based production house wanting to maximize their multi-station editing workflow."

 

Graeme Nattress, President of Nattress Productions Inc.

"metaSAN is the ideal SAN management solution for Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and Gigabit Ethernet networks. So far, we have tested metaSAN with Huge Media-Vault and Fibrenetix Storage systems, Qlogic SANBox switches, and Atto Celerity host bus adapters and have never experienced any compatibility issues."

 

Jörg Hoffman, PSIBER GmbH

"I’m using an HP xw9300 with 4 x SATA2 drives and a Bluefish444 HD Lust board. Whenever trying to capture DPX files, the system would run for 100-250 frames and then drops frames. After installing metaSAN and using DDO and FSO the system can now capture DPX files without any problem!"

 

Gerbrand De Ridder, Trans Tec bv

"Our customers have been clamouring for tools that will help them add intelligence to their workgroups. We are very pleased to be working with Tiger Technology to address this demand."

 

Howard Solomon, President, Integrity Data Systems

"By turning off-the shelf storage and networking components into versatile, easy to support, and highly scalable shared storage workgroups, metaSAN is ideally suited to solve a wide range of workflow configurations at a great price."

 

John Connolly, Midwest Media Group President

"metaSAN’s unique ability to allow multiple cross-platform users to share content and collaborate efficiently while maintaining very high bandwidth will afford us a highly efficient, reliable, centralized and secure storage solution."

 

Michio Fujii, CEO and President, MIC Assosciates, Inc.

metaSAN

Share rich media in a high-speed, cross-platform SAN

metaSAN is a high-speed file sharing Storage Area Network (SAN) management software that sets new standards for cross-platform workgroup collaboration. metaSAN enables multiple users to share access to common data files in workgroups where heavy bandwidth requirements are the norm. With metaSAN, film and video editors, digital artists, healthcare specialists, and corporate users can simultaneously access a common pool of data files such as video clips, databases, satellite imagery, medical archives, or CAD files - as easily and transparently as if the content was stored on their local drive.

Available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, metaSAN innovates with true file sharing, native OS file system and access rights management, virtualization for Avid®, dynamic metadata master arbitration model, and seamless integration with LAN networks. These innovations ensure a perfectly transparent and reliable networked shared storage that can fuel the most creative environments in addition to greatly reducing the cost of managing mission-critical resources.

metaSAN's user-friendly file-level sharing capability offers far more flexibility than the more common volume-level based sharing that imposes serious workflow restrictions.

With metaSAN, you manage accesses to your shared storage the same way you normally would for any other local drive. There is no need for special disk formatting or management utilities, or for creating or managing special user accounts. Network administrators simply use standard OS account management tools to grant or deny access to the individual users. For those in mission-critical environment, metaSAN's dynamic metadata master arbitration model provides the failover mechanism that ensures 24/7 operations by eliminating the risks of downtime associated with conventional metadata controller-based architecture.

metaSAN can seamlessly integrate SAN and LAN networks. With the addition of metaLAN, a multi-point gateway software that connects your enterprise LAN with your high-speed SAN, your entire facility can now benefit from many unique SAN advantages.

metaSAN represents a major shift from traditional SAN management software. You can choose the network topology that best suits your needs - SAN for bandwidth and real scalability, LAN for lower cost and ease of deployment, or a combination of both! You then choose the building blocks that deliver the performance and scalability you need - Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet, and even iSCSI. metaSAN supports the leading vendors of storage and networking technology including Apple, Archion, ADTX, Atto, Brocade, D-Link, Enhance Technology, IBM, Infortrend, Emulex, LSI, Proavio, Qlogic, Seagate, and Xyratex.

The Tiger Technology software turns these off-the-shelf storage and networking components into a high-performance workgroup. metaSAN is fully transparent and compatible with standard applications, Adobe Production Studio and Apple Final Cut Pro. In addition, metaSAN enables efficient collaboration among multiple users of Avid® editing software on the same volume.

To find out if your setup requires a dedicated master or not, read more...

To find out how to achieve realtime playback of image file sequences on your SAN, read more...

SAN installations require professional integration. Contact us today to find out how you can benefit from Tiger Technology.

FEATURES

metaSAN

Other SAN management software
Heterogeneous operating system support Yes - Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux users can share content and collaborate efficiently. Ask
Simultaneous high-speed file sharing Yes - no volume-locking restrictions! All users can read AND write to the same volume.  Ask
Hardware and software agnostic Yes - compatible with all standard applications, storage, and network technologies - including InfiniBand, 4Gb FC, 10 GigE, and iSCSI. Supports stripe sets, trunking and multipathing.  Ask
Native OS file system support Yes - preserves the integrity of NTFS and HFS+ file systems and simplifies SAN maintenance. Manage volumes up to 18 exabytes in size!  Ask
Native OS access rights management Yes - no need to manage additional accounts and passwords for true file sharing.  Ask
Per-node bandwidth usage control Yes - bandwidth reservation and bandwidth quota for each SAN member allow for a fair and optimal distribution of the available network bandwidth.  Ask
Virtualization for Avid® Yes - enables sharing of media files among multiple users of Avid® software on Windows platforms for efficient workgroup collaboration.  Ask
Dedicated metadata controller optional Yes - floating master approach means there is no need to purchase extra licenses, dedicated computers and HBA in non-demanding environments. Tiger recommends a dedicated master for ultimate performance and availability.  Ask
Centralized management of SAN definitions Yes - simplifies SAN management by allowing global, as well as local SAN settings to be controlled from a single workstation.  Ask
Soft zoning Yes - enables the shared storage to be partitioned in a number of zones that permit the compartmentalization of data for increased security.  Ask
24/7 mission-critical ready Yes - access to SAN is fully redundant with true real-time failover capability.  Ask
Multi-point gateway for LAN Yes - turn selected SAN members into a cluster of servers so your LAN clients can benefit from increased performance, high-availability and automatic load balancing.  Ask
Transfer your licenses between OS Yes - metaSAN licenses are not tied to a specific OS. For example, you can easily deactivate a Mac machine to activate a Windows or Linux workstation instead.  Ask
Affordable, time tested, field proven technology Yes - thousands of users worldwide are already relying on Tiger Technology for their daily operations.  Ask

To run the latest version of metaSAN, each system on your SAN must meet the minimum system requirements for the respective operating system. To view operating system compatibility with previous metaSAN versions, click here.

Important: Make sure that each system on your SAN runs the same version of metaSAN.

Mac OS machines:

  • Power PC or Intel-based Mac with 1.33GHz CPU
  • Mac OS X Leopard/Leopard Server, Mac OS X Snow Leopard/Snow Leopard Server (32-bit and 64-bit), Mac OS X Lion/Lion Server (64-bit)

Note 1: Mac OS X 10.4.x supported up until version 4.2.1.

  • 1GB of physical RAM recommended
  • 25 MB of available hard-disk space for installation
  • Network LAN connection (1Gb Ethernet recommended)
  • CD-ROM drive (if installation is done from a CDROM)
  • The following TCP ports - 8100, 8300, 8399, 8500, 8501 - should not be blocked by a firewall if any.

Windows machines:

  • PC with 800-megahertz (MHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 800-MHz 64-bit (x64) processor
  • Microsoft Windows XP (32 and 64-bit), Windows Vista (32 and 64-bit), Windows Server 2003/2008/2008 R2 (32 and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit)

Note 1: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V testing in progress

Note 2: Microsoft Windows 2000 supported up until version 3.0.

  • 1GB of physical RAM recommended
  • 25MB of available hard-disk space for installation
  • Network LAN connection(1Gb Ethernet recommended)
  • CD-ROM drive (if installation is done from a CDROM)
  • The following TCP ports - 7000, 8100, 8101, 8200, 8300, 8399, 8500, 8501, 8502 - should not be blocked by a firewall if any.

Note: Some components may require additional system resources not outlined above.

Linux machines:

  • PC with an Intel P4
  • 1GB of physical RAM recommended
  • 25MB of available hard-disk space for installation
  • Network LAN connection(1Gb Ethernet recommended)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4.0:
    • 2.6.9-11.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-22.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-22.0.1.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-22.0.1.EL.ADSKsmp (64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-34.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-34.0.1.EL.ADSKsmp (64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-34.0.1.EL.ADSK.1smp (64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-42.EL (32-bit only)
    • 2.6.9-55.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-67.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-67.0.4.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-89.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.9-89.0.23.EL (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5.0:
    • 2.6.18-128.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-128.el5.ADSK (64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-128.1.16.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-164.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-164.15.1.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • FilmLightOS 1.3.3662:
    • kernel 2.6.9-3662.floslargesmp (64-bit)
    • kernel 2.6.9-3676.floslargesmp (64-bit)
    • kernel 2.6.9-3777.floslargesmp (64-bit)
  • FilmLightOS 2.0:
    • kernel 2.6.18-92.1.22.el5.centos.plus (64-bit)
  • SuSe Linux 9.3 ( i586 ):
    • kernel 2.6.11.4-21.17-smp
    • kernel 2.6.11.4-21.17-default
  • CentOS Linux 4.7:
    • kernel 2.6.9-78.EL (64-bit)
    • kernel largesmp-2.6.9-78.EL (64-bit)
  • CentOS Linux 5:
    • 2.6.18-164.2.1.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-164.9.1.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-164.10.1.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • 2.6.18-164.11.1.el5 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Note 1: No support for 64-bit version of kernel 2.6.9-42.EL.

Note 2: No support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3.0.

Important: Changing any of the default kernel setting may prevent metaSAN from operating properly.

  • SELinux should be disabled prior to installing the metaSAN
  • The following TCP ports - 8100, 8300, 8399, 8500, 8501 - should not be blocked by a firewall if any.

There are many ways to integrate metaSAN. Here are some of the most popular setups. Click on the link below to see various SAN configurations:

There are many ways to integrate metaSAN. Here are some of the most popular setups. Click on the link below to see various SAN configurations:

Apple Mac OS X centric SAN

This is the most popular setup for high-performance editing on Mac platform. Windows and Linux members can also participate in the SAN.

Windows OS centric SAN

This is the most popular setup for high-performance editing on Windows platform. Mac and Linux members can also participate in the SAN.

VMWare integration

This is a typical setup when using metaSAN with VMWare.

Microsoft Windows Server Cluster Services

Microsoft Cluster Services can be used with metaSAN. Please note that a special integration procedure is available from support.

Microsoft Windows Streaming Server

Microsoft Windows Streaming Server can be used with metaSAN. Please note that a special integration procedure is available from support.