NetApp and Pixit Media Boost Global Performance and Scalability for Framestore
September 05 2017 - 8:00AM
NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP), the data authority for hybrid cloud, today
announced that it has teamed with Pixit Media to deliver
industry-leading postproduction and VFX house performance and
scalability to Framestore. Framestore is an Oscar-, Emmy-,
and British Academy Film Award–winning creative studio.
Well known for its work on blockbusters such as the Guardians of
the Galaxy and Gravity, and global brands such as Guinness,
Coke, AT&T, BMW, and Geico; Framestore deployed the PixStor and
NetApp® E-Series solution in London, New York, Los Angeles,
Montreal and Chicago. With its new solution in place,
Framestore can ensure performance and consistency across all five
sites; can take a cost-effective, simplified approach to disaster
recovery; and has a modular infrastructure to support multiple
workflows.
“We often need to adapt quickly to accommodate multiple
workflows like stereoscopic 4K and VR,” said Beren Lewis, global
head of Integrated Advertising Technology for Framestore. “With
PixStor and NetApp, we get exactly the right balance of everything
we need - the ability to control hardware costs, and the
reassurance that we have partners that really understand our
workflow and applications. Pixit guarantees performance to
the edit stations in a model that we can easily reproduce
globally.”
The world-renowned British visual effects company needed a
storage solution that would be scalable enough to support its
growing business. The solution also had to be fast enough so that
studio artists could manage a steady stream of super-data-intensive
postproduction and VFX projects without any delay or downtime.
Framestore elected to strategically deploy the PixStor and
NetApp solution in its award-winning integrated advertising
division, which encompasses VFX (200 2D and 3D artists), finishing
(19 suites), and rendering (a 7,200-core render farm). The
performance of the system, in both video bandwidth and IOPS,
enables all three of these workloads to run full out with no
negative effect on the finishing editors’ or graphics artists’ user
experience. This capability is revolutionary within an industry
that traditionally partitions off these three workloads to keep the
artists from grinding to a halt.
For instance, this high-performance single namespace allowed
Framestore’s Los Angeles office to tackle two ultra-high-resolution
projects concurrently. The studio spent several months with 60 VFX
artists creating new 4K, 60-frame-per-second content for a major
theme park ride. “In the middle of this production,” explained
David Bees, lead systems engineer in Los Angeles, “Framestore took
on a VR project that alone would have meant trouble for our
previous storage infrastructure.”
“The PixStor and NetApp system supported video
preprocessing—decompression, warping, wrapping, and stitching—of
multiple camera angles into 360-degree volumetric images for
real-time VR playback,” said Bees. The project involved 20TB of
source content, which when decompressed resulted in 70TB of
content. During the heaviest days of processing, the PixStor
component was running at 270,000 IOPS, which was at least several
times what Framestore’s previous infrastructure would have been
able to handle in a single namespace. Meanwhile, the theme park
ride development workflow proceeded concurrently and unhindered by
all the VR preprocessing.
Framestore combined the Pixit Media PixStor software-defined
scale-out storage solution with NetApp E-Series, the storage array
preferred by postproduction houses, large broadcast production
workgroups, and boutique 4K facilities. With this combination,
Framestore deployed a fast and tightly integrated storage platform
for media workflows.
“With the PixStor and NetApp solution in place, Framestore is
positioned to bid on and deliver larger projects with confidence,”
said Lewis. “Backups to remote colocation sites are syncing every
two hours with no compromise at either the artist, render, or
finishing workloads. And because the solution is easy to replicate,
Framestore can easily meet its ambitious expansion plans.”
More information:
- Stop by the Pixit Media Booth at IBC 2017, 15-19 September in
Hall 7, Stand K01
About NetApp NetApp is the data authority
for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data
services that simplify management of applications and data across
cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital
transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global
organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand
customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation, and optimize their
operations. For more information, visit www.netapp.com.
#DataDriven
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http://www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other
company and product names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.
Press Contact:
Madge Miller
NetApp
1 408 419 5263
ng-uspr@netapp.com
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