Lo Coloco Films Brings Mexico's First Animated 3D Film to Life with Dell

Home , 3D film, Dell Vostro

Lo Coloco Films brings Mexico’s first animated • Animation • Backup/Recovery/Archiving 3D film to life with • Blade Solutions • Data Center/Storage Dell technology • Video/Film Production

“We have met our schedule with Dell, and the power of Dell technology has never let us down. We know that we are on the right track, in large part due to the recommendations of the Dell team.”

Customer Profile Company: Lo Coloco Films Lo Coloco Films Industry: Arts, Entertainment and Media Country: Mexico Benefits Employees: 40 (growing to 110 in the near future) • Robust and flexible rendering Web: www.locolocofilms.com platform • Flexible, pay-as-you-grow Business Need storage solution Lo Coloco Films needed to build an animation studio from scratch to • Best-in-class processing engine enable artists to share very large files, access and store data, protect data offsite and render the 259,200 frames of the movie in time to meet based on Dell blade servers production deadlines. • Protection against financial loss with safe storage and Solution backup of data ™ ™ ® ® The company implemented Dell PowerEdge servers with Intel Xeon • Prevention of bottlenecks in processors for its render farm, a Dell EqualLogic™ iSCSI SAN for film sharing very large files image storage, Dell PowerConnect™ switches for network bandwidth without bottlenecks and Dell PowerVault™ tape library for offsite • Projected completion of film storage. Lo Coloco will soon grow its rendering and storage platform on time and within budget and move the entire solution to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Production on Mexico’s first fully animated 3D film “ANA” is underway at Lo Coloco Films, a production company and animation studio tucked away in a trendy neighborhood of Mexico City.

The film is directed by Carlos Carrera, one of the most celebrated directors Technology at Work of the Mexican New Wave. Carrera Services “We’re very happy received the Short Film Palme d’Or in to have Dell be our 1994 and an Oscar nomination for Best Dell™ Hardware Implementation Foreign Film in 2002. He has helmed Services point of contact for seven live action films (including multiple solutions. the all-time highest grossing film in Hardware Mexico’s history) and nine animated Dell EqualLogic™ PS6000XV It streamlines our short films, many of which have iSCSI SAN received major international awards. processes and Dell PowerConnect™ 5448 Gigabit Ethernet switches provides answers fast.” The film is about an eight-year-old girl called ANA, who arrives with her Dell PowerEdge™ M610 blade Alejandro Solórzano Santos, mother to an isolated place by the servers with Intel® Xeon® Production Director, sea with the intention of resting and processors 5500 and 5600 series Lo Coloco Films seeing the ocean for the first time. Dell PowerEdge M1000e modular Once there, ANA meets and befriends blade enclosure a number of strange and amusing fantastical beings. She soon discovers Dell PowerEdge R610 servers with that a terrible danger hangs over Intel Xeon processors 5500 series their heads and is forced to escape Dell PowerVault™ TL2000 tape and go searching for her father. library Accompanied by her new friends, Dell Precision™ T3500 ANA faces many obstacles along the workstations with Intel Xeon way while experiencing a series of processors 3503 exciting and entertaining laptops. Dell Precision T5500 workstations The start-up production company with Intel Xeon processors faced a number of challenges in the Dell Vostro™ 1520 notebook with course of building an IT infrastructure Intel Core™ 2 Duo processors that would enable its artists to work with maximum efficiency. Software Eliminating network bottlenecks Adobe Photoshop “Artists need to share information on Autodesk Softimage very large files, which necessitated Luxology Modo having a network infrastructure with sufficient bandwidth that processes Maxon Bodypaint do not pile up at points and create Pixologic ZBrush bottlenecks,” says Alejandro Solórzano Santos, production director, Lo Coloco Red Hat® Enterprise Linux 5.3 Films. The solution, Dell PowerConnect Symantec Backup Exec™ for 5448 Gigabit Ethernet switches, enable Windows 12.5 multiple users to be simultaneously Windows Server® 2003 connected to the same image data, sharing and accessing information. Windows Server® 2008 The data that is created by the artists needs to be safely stored and accessed. To meet this need Dell provided a Dell EqualLogic PS6000XV iSCSI SAN with 259,200 frames, it is imperative to have a second redundant SAN to which Lo high processing power and optimal Coloco replicates its data. “The Dell generation times for each of these EqualLogic PS6000XV SAN, connected frames,” says Solórzano. “There have to the PowerConnect switches, been occasions in the past where only works perfectly to provide access one frame took as long as two and a and storage,” says Solórzano. “The half hours to be generated due to the solution is so robust that it enables level of complexity of the processes. the configuring of any number of SCSI If we multiply that, we simply would options, and allows for the replication never finish on time—let alone a of data, preventing the loss of stereoscopic film which has one frame information in any eventuality.” sequence for each eye.” The artists access image data via a pair To achieve the rendering times it needs of Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers to meet production schedules, the with Intel Xeon processors 5500 series, company will be implementing a render which allows the company to configure farm based on Dell PowerEdge M610 “Dell listened to the access and permissions very blade servers with Intel Xeon 5500 our needs and efficiently. “The architecture is so stable series processors with 24 gigabytes that only scheduled maintenance of RAM. expectations has to be done, and not because the From Dell Vostro 1520 laptops to high- system is down at every turn,” says and showed a performance Dell Precision T5500 and Solórzano. “That kind of confidence is T3500 workstations, Lo Coloco found genuine interest worth a lot to us.” that Dell offered more than enough in our project. Safe remote storage options to run applications such as Autodesk Softimage, Adobe Photoshop, With its tight schedule, Lo Coloco Competitors were Maxon Bodypaint, Pixologic ZBrush, cannot afford to lose any data. Luxology Modo and several other more concerned “Although we can resume unfinished CPU-, GPU- and RAM-intensive image versions, losing data in this type of with meeting their creation/processing packages. production is expensive and becomes a real nightmare,” says Solórzano. Users are able to configure their sales forecasts “Therefore, we chose the solution equipment according to their tastes than generating Dell provided for tape backup, a Dell and expectations, which provides PowerVault TL2000 tape library. This greater flexibility for making decisions real business way we can move the tapes from based on an allocated budget and the the studio and store them in safe tasks that need to be done. “With the opportunities.” and remote places in case of any wide range of configuration options Alejandro Solórzano Santos, eventuality, so as to avoid spending the from Dell, we had everything solved, Production Director, energy and physical space needed by a including graphics chips compatible Lo Coloco Films backup-only storage drive. It would be with stereoscopic technology,” says idle and expensive.” Solórzano. “It was very important to know that we had the right tools.” The backup solution is operated through a Dell PowerEdge R610 server Adapting to the workflow with Intel Xeon processors 5500 series Lo Coloco used Dell Hardware using Symantec Backup Exec software, Implementation Services for initial which Dell recommended. implementations, after which the Accelerating render times company performed implementations by themselves, without any significant A very important issue for the movie problems. The company also company is rendering time—the time purchased Dell EqualLogic and it takes for computers to generate a Symantec Backup Exec training. final frame of the movie. “If we consider “Thanks to the Dell training, we started that a movie like the one we are making to use the EqualLogic storage and will finally consist of approximately Symantec software immediately after the implementation,” says Solórzano. power of Dell technology has never let “We have constant communication us down,” says Solórzano. “We know with Dell engineers about different that we are on the right track, in large configuration options, tech support part due to the recommendations of and various other issues and they have the Dell team.” been open enough to transfer some of their skills and knowledge of the Simplifying IT equipment so we can make the right Lo Coloco acquired its Symantec decisions when we need to. Of course Backup Exec licenses from Dell as Dell solutions are so well designed well as its licenses for Windows Server that they immediately integrate into 2003 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. the workflow and adapt to the user “Whenever we have had to turn for and not vice versa, which we consider support for any of these solutions, essential. This is very valuable in Dell has been very responsive in our case since we don’t have prior providing the support we needed,” experience in a project like this. This says Solórzano. “We’re very happy to is the first of its kind in the country have Dell be our point of contact for that we are aware of.” multiple solutions. It streamlines our processes and provides answers fast.” Other vendors competed for this business, but Lo Coloco chose Dell Lo Coloco plans to continue working because of the clear and accurate with Dell, first by implementing 13 information the company got from PowerEdge M610 blade servers for its Dell and the close relationship that render farm. It also plans to purchase developed with Dell experts. “Dell another Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN listened to our needs and expectations to expand its media storage capacity. and showed a genuine interest in “Dell EqualLogic components connect our project,” says Solórzano. “We felt to each other seamlessly without attached to Dell from the beginning interrupting service,” says Solórzano. as they have been attentive to our “In addition, we will nearly triple our Dell problems and have always helped with workstations so that approximately 80 a positive attitude, looking for solutions, people can work efficiently. These will quickly and effectively. Competitors be Intel processor-based, with at least were more concerned with meeting two cores—and in some cases up to their sales forecasts than generating eight—Dell Precision T5500 and T3500 real business opportunities.” workstations with high-performance graphic chips.” Once Lo Coloco implements its render farm, it will be able to objectively ANA, the young heroine of the film, measure the processing time for each will have many parents when she frame, which will show how successful makes her debut on the screen with its technology investment has been. her wide eyes and huge imagination. “What we can say now is that we have And one of them will be Dell. met our schedule with Dell, and the

Lo Coloco Films

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Availability and terms of Dell Services vary by region. For more information, visit: dell.com/servicedescriptions © February 2011. Intel, Core and Intel Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States or other countries. Microsoft and Windows Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. This case study is for informational purposes only. DELL MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS CASE STUDY. Reference number: 10008879