The California Academy of Sciences Morrison Planetarium, the world's largest all-digital planetarium, has deployed Avere's FXT Edge filers in a bid to boost visual effects and computer-generated imagery.
Avere Systems, a provider of network-attached storage (NAS) optimisation, was selected to enhance the production process for computer animated films, while saving costs, at the Academy of Sciences.
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The Morrison Planetarium is home to a 75 feet (22.9 metre) wide projection screen, six times the size of a typical cinema screen, which is used to create and display computer-generated imagery. The process requires high-speed storage resources that need to support scaling workloads, which had been putting pressure on IT infrastructure and budget.
"Production demands were pushing the limits of our storage capacity and performance ability, forcing us to either build out our existing infrastructure, which would be costly, or find an alternative solution that could support our needs," said Michael Garza, planetarium and production engineering manager at California Academy of Sciences.
"Avere was the only solution to meet every requirement while also assuring us scalability for future growth. Additionally, the Avere deployment was a seamless drop-in, with no disruptions. Our artists were not even aware of the switch - except for the notable performance improvements," he added.
As a result of the deployment, California Academy of Sciences is now able to distribute more content to other planetariums much more quickly.
"Creating CGI requires enormous amounts of processing and storage, with rendering providing the most compute-intensive activity," said Ron Bianchini, president and CEO at Avere Systems.
"The Avere FXT Edge filer enables production teams to dramatically accelerate the rendering process, streamline infrastructure costs, and maximize productivity under extreme deadline pressures."
