Case Study: VTrak A-Class Answers in Genesis

Solution Summary Finding Answers with VTrak A-Class At A Glance • Answers in Genesis (AiG) is an apologetics Christian ministry located in Kentucky • AiG creates a broad array of media to help and train others about creation, , and the • AiG required a high-performance, high capacity shared SAN storage solution to help the video editing team collaborate more efficiently An ad for the International Spy Academy Vacation Bible School by Answers in Genesis

The PROMISE Solution Discover Answers in Genesis • AiG deployed the VTrak A-Class Answers in Genesis (AiG), founded in 1994 and headquartered in Kentucky, is a Christian shared SAN storage appliance ministry that focuses particularly on providing answers to questions surrounding the and biblical authority. As an apologetics ministry, AiG is dedicated to enabling and training Christians to defend their faith through studying the tough questions about Benefits the Bible. In order to help and train others, AiG employs scientists and PhD’s from around • Simple to set up, configure and use the world to speak on topics such as creation, , anthropology, astronomy and much more. • All key systems can access the same shared storage which makes The Bible based and scientifically accurate lectures are key resources that AiG leverages collaboration a breeze to create a broad array of media which are distributed as DVDs to their customers and • Enterprise-grade RAID protection are added to the extensive Video on Demand collection available online. Additionally, AiG delivers much higher fault produces commercials and also has multiple video series, such as a Vacation Bible School tolerance than previous system curriculum for children. • 65TB of usable capacity provides With an increasing demand to create more media, AiG long outgrew the 500GB of storage plenty of storage for all video capacity it first worked with when the ministry employed 15 people. In 2013, with more projects at AiG than 300 employees, AiG required a SAN solution that helped its video editing team work • Great price point compared to more efficiently, was easy to set up and use, and was cost-effective. After speaking with competing SAN solutions Rob Oddo of Chi Corporation, who AiG had been working with for years, AiG turned to PROMISE Technology and the VTrak A-Class shared SAN storage solution. • Excellent technical support • Export and rendering time cut by High-Performance Shared SAN Storage 50% Before deploying the VTrak A-Class, AiG used six Macs for video editing with each • Improved quality and efficiency of connected to an external FireWire hard drive. This created problems since the storage video editing team was not centralized, so collaborating meant copying data from one Mac to another which took a very long time. AiG also faced a lack of storage for the growing amount of media the video production team was producing in increasingly higher resolutions. The VTrak A-Class easily addressed the issues that plagued AiG. www.promise.com Learn More About: AiG’s VTrak A-Class is connected to a QLogic Fibre Channel switch which is connected to VTrak A-Class Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters inside six Macs and three PCs. AiG also has one MacBook Pro connected directly to the VTrak A-Class with the PROMISE SANLink Thunderbolt to • Shared scale out SAN filesystem Fibre Channel bridge. The VTrak A-Class, configured in RAID 5 with hot spares, provides storage appliance AiG with a much higher level of fault tolerance compared to its previous set up where if • Optimized for rich media a drive died AiG would lose the data. Plus, with 65TB of usable capacity the VTrak A-Class applications provides storage for all of the video projects ongoing at AiG, including those shot in 4K+ • SAN in a Box- single 4U box resolutions. for RAID storage & metadata controllers and switch (switch not Easy to Set Up and Configure needed for up to 4 clients) It was very easy for AiG to set up and configure the VTrak A-Class. PROMISE sent an engineer with an evaluation unit and walked AiG through all of the necessary steps so • Simple to set up and manage once AiG purchased their own unit they knew exactly what to do. According to AiG, this • 50% less cost, 30-40% space and was a huge advantage over competitors who simply send a whitepaper with instructions power savings which can cause a lot of frustration and unnecessary tech support time. AiG believe PROMISE did it the right way and has definitely been happy with the technical support. • Supports Mac OS, Windows, Linux clients “In addition to PROMISE having a very close relationship with Apple, PROMISE has done • Fast - 5.5GB/s Read and 2.4GB/s a lot to shield the user of typical set up for FC and we really appreciate that. The VTrak Write, per node (8 nodes) A-Class shared SAN storage system with its ease of use, out of the box set up, and simple • Scalable – Modular, scales up to configuration really makes it so much easier,” said Ben Wilt, Senior Director of Radio, 7PB Data, 1B files, 1000s clients, 8 Video and AV, Answers in Genesis. nodes, 8 file systems Increasing Productivity Learn more: With the VTrak A-Class, collaborative editing is now a breeze for AiG as all key systems www.promise.com/VTrakA-Class can access the same shared storage which brings huge improvements in efficiency and productivity. The editors no longer need to copy data from one FireWire drive to another in order to collaborate. Plus, the video editors at AiG are now more productive because they can multitask and open up more projects at once and with its high bandwidth, low latency throughout, the time VTrak A-Class delivers incredible performance for 4K+ ©2013 PROMISE Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved. PROMISE, the PROMISE logo, VTrak, workflows. SmartStor, SuperTrak, FastTrak, VessRAID, Vess, PerfectPATH, PerfectRAID, SATA150, ULTRA133 VTrak S3000, BackTrak, HyperCache, “Collaboration on projects by multiple workstations allows for better quality end results HyperCache-R, HyperCache-W, DeltaScan, and more efficiency in meeting deadlines. Because of the PROMISE V-Trak A-Class we were GreenRAID, Pegasus and SANLink are registered or pending trademarks of PROMISE Technology, able to create an effects heavy three minute promo in only two and a half weeks from Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other shoot date. This would not have been possible in our previous workflow environment. trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information regarding products, services Even exporting and rendering speed has been cut by at least half and sometimes more. and offerings may be superseded by subsequent We no longer spend hours on each project copying files for the next person to work on,” documents and are subject to change without said Wilt. “The promo was shot in 5k resolution with the Red Epic and we are able to work notice. with multiple tracks of 5k footage instead of only 1.” www.promise.com