SUCCESS STORY DREAMWORKS Media & With NetApp technology, DreamWorks quickly and efficiently manages the massive amounts of data needed to make its Entertainment animated films come to life.
DreamWorks’ Magical Dragons Soar on NetApp Solutions DreamWorks Animation has long captivated audiences with such beloved franchises as Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Trolls and How to Train Your Dragon. Global audiences are invited into imaginative worlds where they fall in love with DreamWorks’ charismatic animated characters, while behind the scenes, petabytes of data come together to create magic. With NetApp technology, DreamWorks quickly and efficiently manages the massive amounts of data needed to make its animated films come to life.
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MILLION NETAPP.COM/CONTACT 400TB to 500TB OF DATA COMPUTE HOURS “NetApp is part of every CG animated film that’s been produced at DreamWorks. Virtually every movie we’ve made resides on NetApp solutions.” DreamWorks Technology Fellow Skottie Miller
Many people don’t know how complex “NetApp is part of every CG it is to create a feature-length animated film that’s been produced animated film. Hundreds of artists at DreamWorks,” said DreamWorks work on any given DreamWorks Technology Fellow Skottie Miller. feature, each of which takes three “Virtually every movie we’ve made to four years to create. The process resides on NetApp solutions.” requires an average of 400TB to 500TB of data spread across 500 A DIGITAL MANUFACTURER million or more files. It turns out that THAT BRINGS DRAGONS creating characters such as Hiccup, AND PANDAS TO LIFE Toothless, and Astrid, and environ- People are often surprised when ments such as the Hidden World in they learn that DreamWorks focuses the third How to Train Your Dragon so much time and energy on data. film, is pretty heavy lifting, from a DreamWorks leaders are only too data and computation perspective. happy to explain how creativity and technology go hand in hand. In 1994, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen When the first Shrek movie was dreamed up a new kind of animation produced in 2001, it required 6TB studio, one that built technology of data in total. In contrast, a single into its creative vision. Since animated sequence from the then, DreamWorks has produced upcoming release of How to Train 35 animated films which have Your Dragon: The Hidden World collectively grossed more than might need to draw on 50TB of data. $14.45 billion worldwide. The studio has also earned three Academy Every single element of a CG Awards© (including multiple animation film is digitally crafted nominations and Sci-Tech Awards), down to the finest detail. Whether a Golden Globe Award, 45 Emmy it’s thousands of dragons flying Awards, numerous Annie and over the ocean or pandas per- VES Awards, and multiple Golden forming Kung Fu moves on the Globe, Producers Guild and BAFTA screen, DreamWorks, at its core, is nominations. a manufacturer of data. NetApp’s data driven approach provides the Since its inception, DreamWorks has factory floor where DreamWorks been at the forefront of technology creates, curates, and stores its digital innovation as a way to unleash assets. Billions of files and petabytes the creativity of its artists. NetApp of storage must be managed and solutions are at the center of that accessible over the lifecycle of each innovation which has helped the film franchise. studio create those fantastic stories and visuals that captivate audiences “A single frame of a film is made up worldwide. of many hundreds of small files; an entire movie can comprise half new generations of storage media, “Because we use NetApp, our a billion. That collection of files and replaced components without engineers are able to concentrate becomes a real digital asset, not just affecting any users. DreamWorks their efforts on the needs of our for that movie, but for future uses to recently completed an all-flash creative and production teams, come – including sequels, television upgrade in their data center while instead of focusing all of their series, theme park attractions, live in production, without any down- attention on data management,” entertainment and more. We version time or disruption. This all-flash Miller said. the files interactively so an artist can NetApp upgrade has enabled create revisions and still keep track DreamWorks to optimize precious of everything,” DreamWorks CTO data center space, resulting in SOLUTION COMPONENTS Jeff Wike explained. “Not only do substantial savings in power and we create data in the form of digital cooling. The studio expects a sig- NETAPP PRODUCTS asset components for our films, nificant reduction in latency, which FAS8080s Running ONTAP® but we use data about how those contributes to higher performance assets are created and combined and decreased artist wait time. AFF A700s Running ONTAP to optimize our environment.” Mix of HDD and SSD Storage Media The studio’s extensive data envi- 100% UPTIME = MOVIES ronment is supervised by a small FlexArray® Virtualization Software PRODUCED ON TIME support team, thanks in part to data In a world where technology management tools like ONTAP and OnCommand Unified Manager constantly changes, DreamWorks OnCommand Unified Manager. As knows it can count on NetApp. DreamWorks continues to expand multimedia content creation beyond With 100% uptime supported by traditional animated feature films, Clustered ONTAP, DreamWorks having the ability to manage data has expanded NetApp clusters, quickly and efficiently becomes upgraded controllers, introduced mission critical.
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