Video production creates the need for data storage — and a lot of it! This is particularly true for the VFX industry, which must combine and manipulate different kinds of imagery, meaning even more files are needed. Unfortunately, a lot can go wrong when it comes to VFX file storage. You can experience challenges with:
- Management of data
- Performance
- Scalability
- Adaptability
- Visibility
This article will explain how you can best solve these VFX file storage problems and ensure you are achieving maximum performance and efficiency — with the help of a file storage solution like Qumulo. But first, let’s take a look at these problems in more detail.
What VFX file storage challenges could you encounter?
Management of data
Creating photorealistic imageries via VFX entails having to deal with managing the sheer volume of information required to produce it. Why is this volume of data a problem? Well, two reasons come to mind:
- It has a large footprint and demands a lot of storage space.
- It requires conversion to other formats before it can be fed into other tools.
Every subject of VFX holds at least hundreds of digital assets. We need to assemble terabytes of data that must be rendered and/or composite.
Performance
Rendering is an important component of VFX production. It is becoming increasingly difficult to render data as VFX studios worldwide are rolling up to 4K and high resolutions. If your system is under-performing, it will be painfully slow and starve the rendering farm or keep artists from working while rendering is going on.
Scalability
Scaling is another challenge. VFX studios run a tight ship around at their workplace. There is no wiggle room for delays in their schedule to add more resources. The ever-growing number of data files that VFX studios generate can easily fill up their data storage system. It increases the demand for more capacity. Hence, they need to replace their storage system.
Adaptability
VFX data file upload, storage, and transfer across both on-prem and cloud also serves as a mighty challenge.
Visibility
Visibility is another limitation of file storage systems. Treewalk scripts or programs start to lag when data files are incredibly immense — like with VFX production. Administrators have to wait for days to get answers. By then, the answer is too late for them to derive any value from.
VFX studios rely heavily on their file storage system. Therefore, it is crucial for administrators to keep the performance, scalability, adaptability, and visibility issues of their VFX file storage in check.
Qumulo: The ultimate solution to your VFX file storage challenges
Most file-based cloud systems lack one thing or another — they usually aren’t suited to the immense needs of an industry like the VFX industry. Often, one has to compromise over one or more features of such cloud systems.
Qumulo’s file data platform, on the other hand, offers the most efficient file system in the industry, with the best raw-to-useable capacity that leverages 100 percent of usable storage. It covers all loose ends and helps solve the VFX file storage challenges we’ve mentioned.
What can Qumulo do?
Qumulo has features that are specific to it, and they are changing the way we store VFX files. Here are the top features of Qumulo:
- Ultra-fast performance. Qumulo easily handles the processing of massive VFX files.
- Simple modular design. With a simple design, all you have to do is add nodes to scale to petabyte levels, gaining performance and capacity in minutes, without any disruption or downtime.
- Real-time analytics. It helps users develop sound idea storage, detect problems and work around them to accentuate performance.
- Advanced distributed file system. This system comes with a goodbye to tree walks! It symmetrically scales capacity and performance, landing your work in real-time.
- Hybrid and flexible cloud system. Qumulo’s file system facilitates the visibility, scale, and control of your data across on-prem and cloud. It is devised to help you manage your data seamlessly across your data centre and the cloud.
- Visibility. Qumulo monitors performance, capacity, and usage of built-in real-time analytics.
- Data intelligence. It is an effective tool for predicting usage trends and better managing capacity.
- Limitless storage. Billions of files — a mix of large and small files — can be stored for as long as you need. There is no practical limit with Qumulo’s advanced file system technology.
- Automated system. Qumulo configures and manages usage, capacity, and performance. It helps you automate system administration with a programmable infrastructure.
- Identification of problems. Qumulo goes through historical trend data about how your system is functioning and actively looks for potential threats like disk failures.
- Up-to-date. Qumulo uses modern development practices, with minute, frequent releases that keep our file system on the leading edge of what’s possible.
- Out-of-the-box simplicity. Qumulo starts serving data in a matter of hours instead of days.
- Credibility. Fortune 500 companies, major film and animation studios, and some of the largest research facilities in the world vouch for Qumulo as their best fix!
Solving VFX file storage once and for all
Old-school legacy scale-out and scale-up storage spaces were not devised to handle today’s massive data volume, numerous file types, dynamic applications, and workloads. Legacy systems can’t provide the visibility, control, and scale you need to manage your VFX data.
But Qumulo can.
Qumulo is changing the VFX storage game. If you haven’t experienced Qumulo, we suggest you try it out today — it could solve all your problems. To learn more about the system, or for general advice on building out the right file storage system for your VFX or media company, get in touch with us here at Nexstor, the data specialists who know our stuff.
