Welcome to the New
Archive eXchange Format
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The Archive eXchange Format (AXF) is a revolutionary standard helping organizations around
the globe store, protect and preserve their most valuable digital assets
regardless of scale, type, technology or industry.
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What is AXF?
AXF is an open-standard object-container for file-based assets and their associated metadata. It allows any type, size and number of files to be stored, transported and preserved as a collection on any type of storage technology while maintaining full independence of file or operating system and underlying storage.
Over a decade in development, AXF addresses the need for a long-term open storage and preservation format while overcoming the limitations of legacy file and container offerings. AXF was first published as an International Standard by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) in 2014 and later by ISO/IEC in 2017.
AXF allows you to bundle files and any amount of metadata (descriptive, technical, proprietary, etc.) into an immutable, self-describing preservation package while maintaining your ability to dynamically interact with any of the assets contained inside an object. Leveraging AXF, your valuable assets will be protected now and into the future, regardless of the technology you choose today or may choose tomorrow.
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AXF Technology Built Just for You
AXF was designed from the ground up to be light-weight and easy to implement at the application level. It is a unique approach to the storage and management of your valuable digital assets, regardless of your use-cases, environment or technology.
Industry Standard
AXF is a published International Standard (SMPTE and ISO/IEC) in use by hundreds of organizations around the globe protecting and preserving the world's most valuable assets now and into the future
Any Technology
AXF was designed to support any scale and mix of storage technology (including what you already have), operating-systems and file-systems whether they are deployed On-prem or in the Cloud.
Learn MoreVendor Agnostic
AXF is an application level technology and not tied to any specific technology, environment or industry. You are free to select a mix of technologies to fit best your environment and your budget.
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AXF Overview
Brian Campanotti (cloudfirst.io) is one of the primary inventors of AXF and its long-standing global evangelist. He gives a high level overview of this game-changing standard and describes some of the industry use-cases which drove its invention. He also touches on some of the business drivers leading to its successful wide-scale global adoption in several industries.
Key Features
Today AXF is storing, protecting and preserving hundreds of petabytes of the world's most important digital content across many vertical industries.
Here are some core reasons why organizations trust AXF.
Any Type of Data
AXF supports any type of data as well as any number of files of any size. It may be hard to believe but AXF is being used to store, protect and preserve new 4K movies, historical documents and images, evidence and much more.
Metadata Encapsulation
Fundamentally connecting file data with its associated technical and descriptive metadata ensures portability and recoverability by foreign systems with no additional information or context required.
Highly Resilient
As long-term preservation and accessibility is key, AXF includes many foundational resilience features such as redundant index structures, file and metadata signatures, file-footers which replicate core file-data and more.
Any Technology
No one can predict the future of storage. The good news is AXF supports them all. Whether you are using NAS, SAN, data-tape, private or public Cloud or even considering emerging technologies like DNA, AXF has you covered!
Infinite Scale
Born in the media and entertainment industry where a single 8K film can produce a data-set in excess of 10PB, AXF can scale! There are no limits to how large AXF objects can grow!
Preservation Focused
AXF will not impede your workflow as it was designed from the ground up to support any usage patterns in any environment while still delivering true OAIS-standard preservation benefits.
Chain of Custody and Provenance
The Provenance capabilities of AXF, fundamentally important for preservation, can be extended to support true evidentiary Chain-of-Custody in many other applications.
Versioning
AXF objects are immutable. However, the reality is data does evolve over time. Without violating core OAIS preservation principles, AXF fully supports versioning for both payload and metadata.
A Brief History of AXF
From initial conception through to global industry standardization, AXF took a team of dedicated individuals more than a decade of work to complete.
And the work continues today!
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April 2006
The Birth of AXF
Thought leaders and industry experts from Front Porch Digital, Masstech and SGL meet in Las Vegas to discuss the industry need for a standard to store, protect and preserve the immense (and valuable) data-sets in Media and Entertaiment.
October 2008
SMPTE AXF WG Formed
Gaining significant traction in the industry, the founding members becomes an official working committee under SMPTE. AXF continues development under SMPTE 10E30WG-AXF or the Archive eXchange Format (AXF) working committee.
April 2011
AXF First Public Release
At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas, Front Porch Digital announces the completion of their AXF implementation and its release to market as part of their DIVArchive V7.0 Content Storage Management (CSM) solution.
September 2014
AXF Becomes a SMPTE Standard
At the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the ratification of AXF as an Industry Standard is announced. AXF is made openly available to the public as SMPTE standard ST 2034-1:2014.
August 2017
AXF Becomes a ISO/IEC Standard
AXF is ratified by ISO/IEC and published as a International Standard ISO/IEC 12034-1. As one of the original objectives of the AXF Committee, this represents the culmination of more than a decade of hard work.
Today
AXF Part 2 Development Work
The advancement of AXF continues under the scope of SMPTE AXF Part 2. AXF Part 2 aims to introduce key AXF concepts earlier in the creation process capturing important information in the evolution of an asset over time.
If you are a technology provider or end-user contemplating AXF in your environment, please contact us at info@axf.io or submit your questions or comments here. We have a team of AXF experts ready to assist.
We endeavour to answer all enquiries within 24 hours.