Sports Illustrated to Transform Super Bowl Coverage Through Digital Photography and Cutting-Edge Storage Technology

Sports Illustrated to Transform Super Bowl Coverage Through Digital Photography and Cutting-Edge Storage Technology

Isilon IQ Networked Clustered Storage Enables SI to Store and Manage More Than 16,000 Digital Photos and Publish the Images Faster Than Ever Before

SEATTLE, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Isilon Systems(R), the premier provider of intelligent clustered storage for digital content, and Sports Illustrated (SI) today announced that SI has chosen the award winning Isilon IQ clustered storage as the sole on-site network storage system for their coverage of Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, FL this Sunday. Sports Illustrated, recently recognized by Storage Networking World with a Best Practices in Storage Award for Innovation and Promise for their coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, selected Isilon IQ because it enables them to simply, economically and reliably store digital photos and produce the most breathtaking Super Bowl coverage in the history of SI.

At Super Bowl XXXIX, twelve SI photographers will shoot an astounding 16,000 digital photos during the 3.5 hour Super Bowl game. To capture the historic battle between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles, SI photographers will take more than two pictures for each second of regulation game play. To efficiently store, annotate, sort and publish the best images, SI has assembled the most advanced digital photo management and clustered storage systems to be used for a live sporting event.

"The switch to digital photography and a digital workflow will save SI nearly $2 million this year while at the same time enabling us to publish the best pictures ever," said Phil Jache, deputy directory of technology for Sports Illustrated. "We rely on Isilon IQ for the most important events because 'it just works', liberates us from concentrating on our storage infrastructure, and allows us to publish photos faster than ever before."

At the heart of its 100 percent digital work flow is the SI mobile editing trailer where compact flash cards, full of recently captured images, are delivered by runners and loaded onto a high performance 6.75 terabyte Isilon IQ storage cluster. Photo editors, using a bank of networked laptop computers running Microsoft(R) Windows, rapidly annotate, review, sort and prepare digital photos stored on Isilon IQ for publication to multiple SI online and print media properties. To select the best photos from the Super Bowl showdown for its millions of print and online readers, SI editors require a fast, reliable digital storage infrastructure that enables them to review and sort more than two pictures for each second of game play -- from kickoff to the coronation of this year's Super Bowl victor.

"Major organizations like Sports Illustrated are turning to Isilon IQ because it is solving real problems out in the field," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group. "Isilon IQ has a real and significant impact on the success and profitability of their customers' businesses, of which Sports Illustrated is one example. Isilon also brings to the table tons of experience and a proven track record of success supporting these environments. Isilon is one of the clear leaders in network clustered storage for digital content and its customer wins and ongoing product enhancements are the proof."

"We are thrilled Isilon IQ is a core part of SI's Super Bowl coverage," said Brett Goodwin, vice president of marketing and business development for Isilon Systems. "Isilon IQ enables customers like Sports Illustrated to store all of their content in one shared pool, manage it with unprecedented ease and reliability, and substantially improve the economics for delivering the highest quality content to their readers."

Isilon IQ is a high performance clustered storage system that combines an intelligent distributed file system with modular industry standard hardware to deliver unmatched simplicity and scalability. Isilon's OneFS(TM) distributed file system, now in its third generation, offers industry leading reliability, eliminates islands of storage by creating a single global namespace, and enables customers to grow storage capacity and performance linearly. Additional information about SI's use of clustered storage, including the infrastructure used for the Athens Olympic Games, can be found at http://www.isilon.com/SI/ .

About Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated is one of the oldest and most popular sporting magazines in the world and is seen by millions of weekly print and on-line readers. Sports Illustrated has long been a maverick in the use of innovative and breathtaking photography. For more information, visit: http://www.sportsillustrated.com/ .

About Isilon Systems

Isilon is the premier provider of intelligent clustered storage systems for digital content. Isilon's award-winning product, Isilon IQ, is a high performance clustered storage system that combines an intelligent distributed file system with modular industry standard hardware to deliver unmatched simplicity and scalability. Isilon IQ was designed for digital content and large data-intensive markets, such as media and entertainment, digital imaging, life sciences, and oil and gas. The Seattle-based company is financed by Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Atlas Venture and Madrona Venture Group. For more information, visit: http://www.isilon.com/ .

NOTE: The names of companies mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.


Source: Isilon Systems

CONTACT: Rachelle Lockhart of SS+K, +1-425-201-2053, or
rlockhart@ssk.com, for Isilon Systems

Web site: http://www.sportsillustrated.com/

Web site: http://www.isilon.com/


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