A Tale of Three Systems: Shared Storage at Nice Shoes, Guava, and Freestyle Collective

Shared storage is an industry-wide technological challenge and debate. The challenge is immense. Shared storage means more than just sharing files. It means sharing storage data, which can be anything from relatively small text files to 4K and larger image files. It means sharing access to storage data, either across single network points, multiple network points or directly attached. It means sharing the performance of the storage data, from a single low cost hard drive to over 60 high-speed fibre-channel hard drives.

The debate is ongoing and heated. At its most basic, the debate is between a NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution and a SAN (Storage Area Network) solution. A NAS device is built upon existing network protocols. It operates as a shared storage area accessible over a network connection. A SAN solution creates a new network that allows the shared storage area to appear as a local storage device on each workstation. At the moment, a SAN solution can be created to outperform a NAS device. What keeps the debate alive are upcoming advancements in network technology, which may see a NAS device outperforming SAN solutions, or at the very least offering similar performance at a lower price point.

Freestyle Collective, specializing in design and multimedia creative production, has been working off a NAS solution for several years now. An Apple and OS X-centric production workflow, along with Apple Xserve technology, made the implementation and design classical and elegant. The Xserve is a NAS in its truest form, serving a fibre-channel redundant disk array to as many as 10 Mac and PC workstations using a variety of graphics software and 3D animation packages. An internally developed project-management system helps keep project data centralized and organized. EMC Retrospect archiving software and a Quantum SDLT 600 tape drive make a down-and-dirty archive combo. A strong network backbone helps provide plenty of accessibility with a performance benchmark to meet the needs of a render-based workflow.

Guava Studios' new 3D department took a different approach to the NAS solution. The same amount of accessibility was needed, with a little more performance for shared video input and output. Guava finally settled on the Sledgehammer HD!O, a unique NAS device from Maximum Throughput. The Sledgehammer HD!O is a NAS with high accessibility as well as SD and HD capture and playback performance – it has a 10-bit video-capture card built right in. Coupled with a high-performance redundant storage array, it can capture incoming video streams as a sequence of generic file types such as DPX, TGA, TIFF and JPEG. Four points of network access help keep the captured image files very accessible, and it supports network file-sharing standards for Windows, Mac and Linux workstations.

Nice Shoes is examining a SAN solution for its Thomson Specter-based film-to-tape department. The Specter workflow starts with high-resolution film scans into storage. High-resolution data files are then color-corrected in real time as data. Performance is key. Nice Shoes needs to determine how much performance it will need from the system now and build something expandable for the performance needs of the future. The data must be shared between multiple Specter suites at high performance while maintaining a degree of accessibility with other Autodesk Discreet and 3D-animation stations. Nice Shoes is looking at vendors including Bright Systems, Blue Arc, Network Appliance and DataDirect Networks.

Maximum Throughput came through again for Nice Shoes, Guava Studios and Freestyle Collective with Xstoner2, which helps link generic shared storage to the proprietary AutoDesk Discreet systems. It's a software interface that allows visual browsing of Inferno, Flame and Smoke from any Mac or Windows workstation on the network, tying shared storage resources together with the Autodesk system. Image sequences are moved to and from shared storage directly into the Autodesk proprietary Stone storage system.

All three companies are currently in early development of a nearline to offline archive system. Again, the focus is both NAS and SAN solutions. We are looking forward to new technologies – specifically 10-Gigabit Ethernet and four-gigabit fibre-channel. We are also looking at tape storage vendors like Sony and ADIC. Whatever our future holds, we will continue to value and invest in shared storage solutions.