Published on 01-Sep-2008
"The IBM Scale-out File Services solution helps our animators to co-operate by enabling rapid and easy access to shared projects." - Auchara Kijkanjanas, Managing Director of Kantana Animation Studios Co., Ltd
Customer:
Kantana Animation Studios
Industry:
Media & Entertainment
Deployment country:
Thailand
Solution:
Cloud Computing, Digital Media, Information Infrastructure, Small & Medium Business
Overview
With 56 years of industry experience, Kantana is one of the leading entertainment companies in Thailand.
Business need:
Kantana Animation Studios found that its character rendering and modeling processes were putting increasingly heavy demands on its data storage infrastructure. Needing to store and retrieve extremely large files at high speed, the studio looked for a cost-effective solution that could handle exceptional growth.
Solution:
Kantana implemented IBM Scale-out File Services (SoFS), an all-in-one data storage solution with IBM System x™ and IBM System Storage™ technologies and management services from IBM Global Technology Services. The solution allows Kantana to store large files in a single logical location, accessible by all animators. Storage capacity may be increased precisely as the business requirements dictate.
Benefits:
Increased productivity with centralized file storage for all animators; enhanced, cost-effective scalability meets growing business requirements; reduced administrative workload and costs with IBM Scale-out File Services
Case Study
With 56 years of industry experience, Kantana is one of the leading entertainment companies in Thailand. The company produced the first Thai 3D animation film—“The Adventure of Khan Klauy”—which was widely acclaimed by Thai audiences and won awards both in Thailand and in international competitions.
The development of animated characters, as well as the scenes, lighting and camera angles, requires multiple review and rendering stages. During the process, the data volume generated rises dramatically and the file sizes can reach several terabytes.
Kantana’s existing data storage infrastructure offered insufficient performance, flexibility and scalability. Slow file access performance affected the throughput of the rendering systems, which reduced the studio’s productivity. With data fragmented across a number of network attached storage (NAS) devices, it was also difficult and time-consuming for animators to access their working files.
Scaling up with IBM
To ensure that its business could continue to grow rapidly, Kantana selected the IBM Scale-out File Services solution.
The IBM Scale-out File Services (SoFS) solution at Kantana is based on eight IBM System x3650 servers running IBM General Parallel File System™, two IBM System Storage DS4800 arrays with a total of 50TB of fibre-channel disk, two IBM System Storage TS3310 Tape Library units, and services from IBM Global Technology Services. IBM Global Technology Services manages the solution as a service, handling system administration and support, leaving the Kantana team free to focus on its animation business.
“The IBM Scale-out File Services solution helps our animators to co-operate by enabling rapid and easy access to shared projects,” comments Auchara Kijkanjanas, Managing Director of Kantana Animation Studios Co., Ltd.
The perfect TCO story—Scale out on demand
When storage needs rise, the IBM Global Technology Services adds additional capacity as required. As the additional storage capacity is charged to Kantana on a usage basis, there is no up-front investment cost for hardware acquisition. Crucially, as the storage capacity available to the animation team rises, there are no changes to existing file names or folder locations.
SoFS uses IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS), a high-performance shared-disk file system that enables high-speed access to files for multiple simultaneous users. For Kantana, GPFS means that its rendering applications can run at maximum speed, increasing studio throughput, while animators enjoy rapid access to a central file store.
Says Auchara Kijkanjanas, “By using IBM Scale-out File Services to tune our network and storage systems, we will greatly reduce our operational costs and increase our business flexibility and productivity.”
Bringing order out of chaos
With IBM Scale-out File Services in place, Kantana has eliminated storage-related business management issues. The sometimes chaotic file-naming and location conventions have been replaced with a single, centralized storage service for all the studio animators and rendering systems.
“With IBM Scale-out File Services, storage is much easier to manage, and we can now grow the business and take on more projects without worrying about the technical consequences,” concludes Auchara Kijkanjanas. “IBM handles all the maintenance and support, and provides a managed service that varies capacity according to our needs. We are confident that the solution will easily support our projected business growth.”
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
Storage: DS4800, Storage: Tape & Optical Storage, System x, System x: System x3650
Software:
General Parallel File System
Legal Information
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