Isilon to Provide Clustered Storage for NBC's Coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games

Isilon to Provide Clustered Storage for NBC's Coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games

LAS VEGAS, April 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- (NAB, BOOTH #SU8525) - Isilon(R) Systems (NASDAQ:ISLN), the leader in clustered storage, today announced that they have been selected to provide Isilon IQ clustered storage to NBC during the network's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, August 8-24. The announcement was made today by Craig Lau, Vice President, Information Technology, NBC Olympics and Brett Goodwin, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Isilon Systems.

Described as the most ambitious single media project in history, NBC will present more than 3600 hours of broadcast coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. NBC will be using Isilon IQ clustered storage as the primary, on-site storage solution for media created on its HD EVS XT[2] server system and will be archiving its entire collection of low resolution Olympic footage onto Isilon IQ, ensuring unmatched data availability and reliability for this critical content. NBC is among hundreds of media and broadcast companies who rely on Isilon IQ to create, access, deliver, and archive the next generation of digital media.

"NBC's broadcast of the Olympic Games in Beijing is an unprecedented media event, broadcasting thousands of hours of programming via standard and high definition, online, on-demand, and even on-the-go wireless coverage over just a seventeen day period," said Craig Lau, Vice President, Information Technology, NBC Olympics. "This epic undertaking requires the latest innovations in broadcast infrastructure and Isilon clustered storage plays an important role in our media workflow, enabling immediate, reliable access to content 24x7 to help power our Olympic broadcast operations."

In Beijing, NBC is primed to deliver the first-ever television broadcast of the Olympic Games available completely in high-definition. Following NBC's successful use of Isilon IQ for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, NBC is using Isilon IQ as a core storage repository for two key aspects of NBC's Olympic broadcast workflow.

First, to serve the real-time editing and production needs on-site in Beijing, NBC has deployed separate Isilon clusters in the International Broadcast Center and two other venues to store and access content produced by its HD EVS XT[2] server system. Isilon IQ delivers unmatched performance, ease of use and data availability, providing a single, shared pool of highly scalable storage to support the seamless ingest, edit and play-to-air capabilities of the six-channel XT server system. Second, NBC will deploy Isilon clustered storage to archive low resolution video of the Olympic Games, ensuring this valuable content is immediately and reliably accessible by producers for later editing and broadcast.

In April of 2007, Isilon announced a multi-year agreement with NBC Universal to use Isilon's IQ clustered storage systems to archive and access its growing stores of media programming, including TV and productions, movies, news and sports. NBC Universal has deployed Isilon IQ to complement and, in some cases, replace traditional tape based technology which allows for faster access times and increased reliability.

"We are currently witnessing a sea change in the way digital media is being created, managed, and delivered and consequently, an entirely new storage infrastructure is required to handle the insatiable demands of tomorrow's media consumer," said Brett Goodwin, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development, Isilon Systems. "Isilon IQ clustered storage is designed specifically to meet the unique demands of media and content delivery companies who are serving up the next generation of entertainment."

Powered by OneFS(R), Isilon IQ delivers the industry's first single file system that unifies and provides instant and ubiquitous access to the rapidly growing stores of digital content, eliminating the cost and complexity barriers of traditional storage architectures. OneFS is a unified operating system software layer that powers all of Isilon's award-winning family of IQ clustered storage systems including the Isilon IQ 200, 1920, 3000, 6000, 9000, 12000, Accelerator, and EX 6000, 9000 and 12000. Isilon also provides a robust suite of software applications including SnapshotIQ(TM), SmartConnect(TM), SmartQuotas(TM), MigrationIQ(TM) and SyncIQ(R) that leverage OneFS and clustered storage, providing the highest levels of data protection and automated data management.

About NBC Olympics

NBC, "America's Olympic Network," owns the exclusive U.S. media rights to the Olympic Games, television's most powerful property, through 2012, which includes Beijing in 2008, Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012. From August 8-24, 2008 NBC Universal will present an unprecedented 3,600 hours of coverage, highlighted by NBC in primetime with live swimming, gymnastics and beach volleyball. In August 2004, 203 million viewers watched as the networks of NBC Universal-NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo, Telemundo, and NBC's HD affiliates-offered a then record 1,210 hours of Olympic coverage from Athens. For additional information, go to NBCOlympics.com, a year-round destination for fans of Olympic sports, featuring news, Beijing previews, athlete features, expert blogs, photos, Olympic video from the NBC archives and social tools enabling users to build communities around their favorite sports, post comments and blogs.

About Isilon

Isilon Systems (NASDAQ:ISLN) is the worldwide leader in clustered storage systems and software for digital content and unstructured data, enabling enterprises to transform data into information - and information into breakthroughs. Isilon's award-winning family of IQ clustered storage systems combines Isilon's OneFS operating system software with the latest advances in industry-standard hardware to deliver modular, pay-as-you-grow, enterprise- class storage systems. Isilon's clustered storage solutions speed access to critical business information while dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of storing it. Information about Isilon can be found at http://www.isilon.com/.

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

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact: lucas.welch@isilon.com

Source: Isilon Systems

CONTACT: Lucas Welch of Isilon Systems, +1-206-315-7621,
lucas.welch@isilon.com

Web site:

http://www.isilon.com/

-------
Profile: intent