REDMOND,
Wash., July 19, 2000 -- Digital FilmWorks, a leading producer of motion
picture digital effects, uses ADIC's CentraVision file system to manage
its Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) and give itself a competitive
edge.
When it can take more than 2.4GB of data to represent a single second
of film footage, it's easy to see why storage management is a business-critical
task for anyone in the world of digital editing. At Digital FilmWorks
(DFW), serverless SAN technology dramatically reduces the time needed
to process data, giving the company an advantage in a highly competitive
field.
"In
some ways, digital effects work faces the same problems as any business
with large amounts of data that needs to be shared between different
users" explains Peter W. Moyer, DFW's president. "We just
see bigger files and more time pressure. In a simple effects workflow
sequence, a single frame -- up to 100 MB -- might need to be used four
times. One workstation cleans up the image. A second might use the frame
as a reference to create a new digital image that will be added to it
-- a futuristic car, for example. A third might lift an image from the
master and alter it for use somewhere else. And a fourth would assemble
all the pieces into a final composite. All of them need access to that
image."
"In
the days before SANs and CentraVision, we copied stuff like crazy and
carried it between workstations on tape," Moyer explains, "and
that's how most people still do it -- standard networks don't have the
bandwidth to move that kind of data around. The problem is that it takes
forever and people spend too much time waiting for their turn."
The SAN that DFW installed over a year ago dramatically altered the
workflow sequence. Now, a single digital file is stored on a Fibre Channel
disc on a high-bandwidth SAN. Workstations, each with the CentraVision
distributed SAN file system installed, access the data over the SAN
rather than working on copies.
"Each
workstation directly accesses the data at local disk speed, and with
CentraVision, we have true data sharing," Moyer explains. "Several
workstations -- even running on different operating systems -- can use
the same file at the same time. It eliminates the waiting and slashes
the amount of time a job takes. When revisions are needed, we can often
make the changes while the client is in the studio, something we never
could have done with the old system."
The DFW SAN also saves the company time in basic scanning and recording
tasks, giving it another important competitive advantage. The company
makes its own digital files from analog film using a scanner linked
to the SAN through one of the workstations.
"We can also move the data quickly from disk to digital tapes for
delivery to a customer or for backup, using parallel data streams from
the file master to several tape drives at the same time," Moyer
said. "When it's time to write the digital files back to film, a
recorder pulls the files back over the same SAN. With the CentraVision
SAN, we have eliminated storage servers as well as duplicate files.
Each workstation connects directly to the SAN, and a separate file system
manager arbitrates requests from the workstations but is completely
out of the data stream. This is a slick system."
About Digital FilmWorks
Digital FilmWorks is a complete negative to negative motion picture
post production facility. DFW also provides high-resolution film scanning
and laser film recording along with digital compositing and complete
3D graphics services. DFW's credits include more than 50 feature films
and major television projects, including A Bug's Life; Air Force One;
Alien Resurrection; Anna and the King; Armageddon; Babe II; Contact;
Crow, City of Angels; The Fugitive; Mortal Kombat II; Mulan; Phenomenon;
Rocketman; Selena; Star Trek 9; Tarzan; X-Files, the Movie; and Zorro.
Digital FilmWork's web site is www.dfw-la.com.
About ADIC
With more than 60,000 automated tape libraries installed and a suite
of innovative software solutions and Storage Area Networking (SAN) products,
ADIC (Nasdaq:ADIC) is a leading global provider in the growing market
to manage and protect information for computer networks. The Company's
own storage management tools include AMASS and CentraVision, products
which provide users with shared access to network data. A pioneer in
Storage Area Networks, ADIC's Open SAN solutions combine open-system
SAN hardware and software with installation services and single-call
support.
