Jam Filled Studios Opts for Avere

Avere Systems, Inc. announced that Jam Filled, a full-service digital animation studio, uses its filers to support over 360 artists across two locations, providing 24/7 rendering power and nearly 100% up time.

The Avere FXT Edge filers accelerate turnaround on rendering workloads, reduce demand on production storage and eliminate network latency. This infrastructure allows Jam Filled’s artists to focus on the creative process without interruption from slow data loads or remote workstation latency and enables the studio to meet a demanding production pipeline.

Jam Filled, known for its 2D and 3D work for Mattel Creations, NBCUniversal Universal Kids, Nickelodeon, and other major networks, was facing some challenges supporting a busy production pipeline that required short turnaround schedules. With the growing demand for services, the studio was juggling resources to prevent heavy rendering workloads from impacting workstation responsiveness. To eliminate competition for storage resources, the studio occasionally was forced to shut down portions of the render farm during the daytime while trying to catch up on jobs overnight – risking costly delays.

Jam Filled has solved these issues with FXT Edge filers which serve as a caching layer between the studio’s distributed compute resources and tier one production NAS – eliminating network latency. In addition, an Avere cluster also front-ends the studio’s 6,400-core render farm deployed at a co-location facility, which allows artists in multiple locations to work off the same file system with zero latency, reducing demand on expensive production filers. Using Avere, the studio ensures a responsive workstation environment with fast data loads, even when the render farm is running at full capacity.

“Avere helps us more cost-effectively deliver the requisite high-performance infrastructure that gives Jam Filled artists the power and freedom to be imaginative and the ability to take on every project,” said John Hickson, director of technology, Jam Filled. “Sluggish toolsets and data loads can very quickly impact artist productivity, as well as project schedules, cost and quality. Avere lets us fully leverage the performance of our compute and storage resources, non-disruptively scale existing clusters and accelerate turnaround on rendering jobs, reducing demand on production storage.“

“We are excited to support Jam Filled in bringing their clients’ visions to life,” said Ron Bianchini, president and CEO, Avere. “Avere’s work with Jam Filled is a great example of how our technology removes production bottlenecks and makes artist collaboration even easier.“

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