Why Good Storage is Important for VFX

Why Good Storage is Important for VFX

The Visual Effects market has been increasing at an astounding rate over recent years. Fuelled by an increase in targeted broadcast, availability of low cost internet access, and penetration of mobile devices, according to Research and Markets the animation, VFX, and gaming market is projected to reach US$ 270 billion by 2020. Whilst that is obviously all great news for everyone in the VFX industry, the rising tide of assets is leading to a storage challenge for many.

The Storage Challenge

This increase in demand means that VFX artists are creating more content than ever before. Also these are data-hungry files that use up a lot of space. At the same time, with so much content being created, VFX artists can often monetise or re-use previously created animations.

The reaction to the growing archive is often to just whack on a bit more storage to deal with more capacity. However, adding on extra storage capacity generally leaves you with storage silos, essentially lots of separate pots that are not interconnected. Every time you want to find a piece of content, you have to first try and remember which silo you stored it in, then you need to wade through it to find the specific item. With so much content and everything stored in silos, how do you find what you are looking for?

Intelligent Storage

By implementing a media focused private cloud and object storage platform, VFX companies can revolutionise their infrastructure. These solutions are much more integrated, so you can add as many nodes as you like whilst keeping everything searchable from a single interface. That means you no longer have silos of storage where you need to know exactly where something is stored before you can find it. Metadata tagging makes content much more discoverable too, rather than needing to know the file name or date something was created, you can search based on a number of different parameters. In the case of our solution, MatrixStore, we have added Artificial Intelligence support, meaning that items can be automatically tagged based on specific content.

The right storage solution can also greatly increase efficiency. Automated workflows mean you can set rules for when an item should be moved to archive, restored, etc. Many companies are also looking for hybrid cloud workflows where some items will be stored in the public cloud and some in the private cloud and moved between the two when required. This has obvious advantages for keeping egress costs to a minimum whilst enabling global collaboration on projects.

Ultimately, VFX artists are challenged with growing archives and a growing need to monetize their work. Having an archive, which is efficient to manage, but where content can be easily discovered, will have a huge impact on making the industry much more efficient.

About Object Matrix

Object Matrix is an award winning UK based software company that pioneered Digital Content Governance (DCG), object storage and the modernisation of digital video workflows. Our media focused private and hybrid cloud solutions are tightly integrated into file based and IP workflows and bring economic and operational benefit to all of our customers. Our flagship product, MatrixStore, is used by the world's largest organisations that create and distribute video content, including NBC, TV Globo, MSG-N, the BBC & BT.

LINK:	https://object-matrix.com/why-good-storage-is-important-for-vfx/...
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