Sydney, AUSTRALIA - 28 January 2010
- NetApp announced today it has partnered with Weta
Digital, a world leader in digital effects and animation, to
provide data storage for the production of the record-breaking
film, Avatar.
Avatar was filmed with revolutionary new
motion-capture techniques, which generated more data than any other
movie in history (more than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy
combined), creating a new set of challenges never before faced by
the digital effects industry.
The key data storage challenge for Weta
Digital during the production of Avatar was the question of how to
manage efficiently the huge amounts of data being generated by the
renderwall, and how to provide the artists with fast access to that
data when changes were made to the master texture files (a texture
file is a picture of an object used in Avatar, such as a leaf or a
thread of hair, which is wrapped around a 3D model during the
rendering process).
Weta used its NetApp storage arrays to hold
all of the high-value artist-generated data, therefore reliability
and management of this data was of paramount importance.
The process of managing data generated in
such a technology-intensive CGI environment presents a unique set
of performance and capacity-intensive storage challenges. Weta had
to deal with a large number of unique data hosts, a read-heavy
workload and very high numbers of medium-sized files. Weta worked
with NetApp and Fujitsu New Zealand to develop a scalable storage
solution which:
- Reduced the amount of manual data management required in the
process of rendering files, and
- Maximised the price-to-performance ratio for its storage
environment.
Together, NetApp, Fujitsu and Weta created a
system that allowed Weta to automatically balance the throughput
requirements of the renderwall to provide more than 35,000
rendering cores with the fastest possible access to commonly used
texture files. This solution was based on NetApp's FlexCache
storage devices to maintain high-speed data access, while ensuring
synchronisation so all users could access the updated texture files
simultaneously. The implementation of the NetApp FlexCache systems
saved Weta Digital 95 percent of the manual intervention required
for data movement and management that would have been needed
otherwise.
The NetApp FlexCache tier also allowed Weta
to automate the process of having one master version with multiple
copies that could be accessed quickly. This meant manual
intervention to manage data was no longer required for:
- Publishing changed data - the old storage model required manual
intervention to update the master texture file once an artist made
changes
- Data management - the previous storage model required manual
intervention to keep multiple identical texture files in multiple
places at the same time
- Data synchronisation - previously, manual intervention was
required to synchronise a master version with multiple read-only
renderwall-facing copies.
Paul Ryan, CTO of Weta Digital, said, "A
traditional storage approach would have made it very difficult to
manage the workload required for Avatar, Having partnered with
NetApp successfully for 10 years, we were delighted they delivered
an innovative, efficient storage environment that was tailored to
our needs.
"The NetApp solution reduced our data
management overhead costs by 95 percent and increased our storage
price-to-performance ratio by over 40 percent. "It has also
drastically reduced the CPU load on storage, which translated to
lower latency, faster rendering times and increased artist
productivity. We were looking for a cost-effective and efficient
answer to our data management problem, and NetApp really delivered
with its FlexCache solution."
Technical overview
- 4 x high availability NetApp SA600 FlexCache storage devices
running NetApp Data ONTAP, each with two shelves of 450GB 15K
fibre-channel drives. Based on the NetApp FAS6000 storage
environment at the backend, the FlexCache devices act as a highly
scalable caching layer between the renderwall and a single NetApp
storage array, which holds the master copy of the texture
file.
- Two 16GB PAM (first generation solid-state storage accelerator)
cards in each system to maximise read performance without the
requirement for large numbers of disk spindles. This reduced cost,
power consumption and cooling required.
- Two 10GbE Ethernet links to the renderwall with TCP/IP Offload
Engine (TOE) functionality enabled to ensure maximum aggregate link
performances are reached.
Peter O'Connor, Area Vice President for
NetApp Australia and New Zealand said, "NetApp has demonstrated how
our innovative storage and data management solutions have enabled
Weta to achieve greater storage efficiencies and to reduce their
cost of ownership. Our partnership with Weta is an example of how
NetApp continues to meet the market's demand for solutions that
address real business challenges and enable business
breakthroughs."
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions
that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost
efficiency. Discover NetApp's passion for helping companies around
the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com/au.
NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further,
faster , Data ONTAP, and FlexCache are trademarks or registered
trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other
countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be
treated as such. The word "partner" or partnership" does not imply
a legal partnership between NetApp and any other company.
Media Contact:
Rachel York
Max Australia
+61 2 9954 3492
Rachel.York@maxaustralia.com.au