About the project

Deluxe was established in Hollywood in 1919 as a movie post-production and publication company. With the rapid development of digital technologies, it has emerged as a world's leading digital movie post-production service provider. Driven by the evolution of technology and users' demands, production of digital movies, especially HD digital movies, has posed strict requirements on the production system's capabilities, especially on the storage bandwidth of the system. Therefore, the post-production network must have a large bandwidth to meet the high concurrent reading and access requirements of HD digital movie production and to ensure the reliability of the system.

The solution employs the IB SAN network structure to provide a large bandwidth, which is the key for the production network. The large bandwidth will substantially improve the efficiency, reduce time and human costs, and facilitate the special effects production and publication of movies. File sharing is another key for the real-time network editing in addition to the storage performance. The realization of file sharing in IB SAN structure is a new challenge and a fresh trial for storage networks.

Solution 

To satisfy these requirements, the storage network is built based on the IB SAN structure and integrates BWStor CSA with the IB SAN storage devices. The storage network is connected with front-end workstations by the IB switch and wires. BWStor CSA is integrated to manage IB SAN storage devices and provide the file-level shared storage space for front-end application workstations.

Because of the out-of-band transmission method, BWStor CSA5000 fully supports the IB SAN access interface to give full play to the IB SAN storage devices and provide high-performance, high-concurrency and reliable file sharing and storage services for front-end application workstations. 

Application performance

BWFS CSA5000 system that centers the BWFS BlueWhale Cluster File System has been proven reliable through strict testing and practical use with the following features:
 
 1. It provides a high-performance file sharing storage space. By integrating storage capacities of the IB SAN storage devices, BWStor CSA is able to create a unified storage space and provide file sharing and storage services for front-end application workstations. Therefore, users can share data without copying files from one station to another, improving the work efficiency. It can also prevent data errors that may arise during duplication of files. 
 
2. Underpinned the out-of-band data transmission in IB SAN network, the system can effectively solve the IO bandwidth bottleneck and IO request delaying in massive concurrent access scenarios and provide large bandwidth, low delaying and quick responding service capabilities.

3. Adopting standard transmission interfaces, BWStor CSA5000 supports various transmission protocols including IB SAN, FC SAN and IP SAN, providing stable and reliable data flows in the IB SAN network and facilitating post-production of digital movies.