Managing a growing media library comes with its share of hurdles. After production wraps and the crews go home, the rigorous and unsung work of data management begins. 

Media owners constantly contend with the limits of physical storage capacity associated with on-premise storage and the complexity of cloud-based storage tiers. They match the type of asset—works in progress, finished products, highly trafficked footage, and B-roll gathering dust—to the appropriate storage medium.

Challenges in managing growing media libraries today

According to new data from Wasabi’s Global Cloud Storage Index Report, only 19% of data is seen as “cold,” meaning accessed only annually or on a less-than-quarterly basis. This indicates that what was once seen as archival data is being accessed and utilized more than previously thought, and it requires a reorientation of storage resources to accommodate; truly “cold” storage formats like LTO and archival tiers that restrict access are no longer the ideal place for data.

Cost is a huge factor in data management decisions, as on-prem capacity comes at the highest rate and in high demand for edit-heavy workloads. Accessibility, too, must be considered. Footage stored on certain storage media, like LTO tape or “cold” cloud storage tiers, can take hours or even days to retrieve. It’d be a mistake to put any incomplete or WIP project in one of these locations should they need to be retrieved. 

The Solution: Leverage cloud storage in your media asset management strategy

Data orchestration is one of the key challenges media owners face every day, and one of the most important tools in their arsenal is a media asset manager (MAM). Your organization may already utilize a MAM setup – and that's great! An ideal MAM is one that can receive and index data from a variety of sources—on-prem hardware, cloud, tape, and beyond—and give content owners a single pane of glass      through which to view it all. From this control station, content owners can organize, share, and search from their entire media library. Designed specifically for creative and media workflows, Iconik brings the MAM features that post teams, producers, and archivists need—without the complexity of traditional enterprise systems. From ingest to archive, Iconik acts as the connective tissue between storage, users, and workflows.

Increasingly, content sits between on-prem and cloud environments. This “hybrid” cloud model is widely adopted by media organizations for its flexibility and accessibility of data. Content owners can split their content between on-prem systems for high-availability workloads like post-production and then “tier” finished, nearly finished, or archival material to the cloud, freeing up their valuable hardware space for more work. With Iconik, this kind of intelligent tiering can also be automated. Automations and customizable workflows make it easy to move or archive content based on age, usage, or metadata—ensuring your high-performance storage is always optimized while keeping archived media easy to find and retrieve when needed. That level of control can also lead to significant savings over time.

 The cloud offers a highly scalable and affordable option for long-term storage that doesn’t require any up-front investment that complements existing on-prem systems and workflows. 

Wasabi and Iconik for the win: Premier Lacrosse League

The Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) is a professional lacrosse league with teams that travel across the U.S. playing matches and growing the sport’s fanbase. For years, the PLL used a local server for media storage and backup, which was slow, unreliable, and difficult to access remotely. 

When the league adopted Iconik and Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, they gained a reliable, cost-effective media asset management solution that integrates with their existing on-premises storage. The league could now retain a copy of their data in the cloud, which also provided a reliable, secure way to access footage remotely when on the road. 

“Wasabi and Iconik’s affordable pricing allowed us to scale without sacrificing performance. It’s exactly what we needed to support our league’s growth.” —Taylor Wasserman, Lead Media Asset Manager at Premier Lacrosse League.

Wasabi’s low-cost, high-performance cloud object storage served as a secondary storage location and active archive for their editors. Without fees for egress or API requests, their editors in New Jersey could access footage freely as soon as it was ingested into their Los Angeles hub. And Iconik’s intuitive media management interface gave them a view into storage across media, both on-prem and in the cloud. With Iconik’s powerful search and metadata tools, the PLL can find the footage they need instantly—even across multiple storage locations—without digging through folders or requesting restores.

Hybrid workflows will power the future

With hybrid-cloud workflows on the rise within sports media, organizations are empowered to store more data than ever. Iconik and Wasabi provide an integrated, scalable, and cost-effective cloud-based solution that fits into any modern media workflow. With the ability to access more videos in their library, organizations will have more freedom to create the content they want and greater flexibility when crafting a message.

Whether you’re starting small or scaling to millions of assets, Iconik and Wasabi grow with you—giving you confidence that your media management strategy will keep up with your creative ambition.

Come meet us live at NAB 2025 to learn more about how to scale your organization's media archive with Iconik and Wasabi.