Thinkbox has released Deadline Cloud Wizard for Google Cloud Platform, a new Deadline feature that automates the configuration of render farms based on Google Cloud Platform. The company said the management of Google Cloud-based render farms within Cloud Wizard is now a one-time task that takes less than 30 minutes to complete. 

Meanwhile, Thinkbox has released a beta version of Deadline Cloud Wizard for Amazon EC2 that works in pretty much the same way, tapping Deadline 7's built-in virtual-machine extensions to control rendering resources in public and private cloud platforms.

"Deadline allows the cloud to act like local machines, giving users the ability to scale up quickly and efficiently," said Thinkbox Software founder Chris Bond in a prepared statement. "Our Deadline Cloud Wizard for Amazon EC1 takes that functionality a step further by enabling Amazon users to be cloud-ready with minimal effort and technical maneuvering."

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The software uses customers' Amazon and Google cloud account information for secure communication over a VPN. Demo slave virtual machines and jobs are set up on launch. Deadline Cloud Wizard for Amazon EC2 runs on Deadline v7.1, but is expected to support the release of Deadline 8 later this summer. The new proxy server in Deadline 8 will allow users to make a secure connection over the public Internet using the SSL security protocol instead of relying on a VPN for protection.

In addition to Google Cloud Platform and Amazon EC2, Deadline supports cloud renduring on Microsoft Azure, OpenStack, and other platforms. A trial version of Cloud Wizard is available.