Dwarf Animation Studio in France Deploying Red Hat Gluster Storage

Red Hat, Inc. announced that DWARF Labs at DWARF Labs SAS in Perols, France, has adopted a software-defined storage framework by deploying Red Hat Gluster Storage running on industry-standard servers.

Animation projects for luxury clients, such as Cartier Jewelers, prompted DWARF Labs to upgrade its technology infrastructure and embark on producing the studio’s first full-feature animated film. Gluster Storage solution gives DWARF Labs’ artists and technologists the agility to collaborate in creative ways without technology boundaries.

DWARF Labs chose Gluster Storage software based on the results of its product and industry benchmarking process in which the solution ranked first in every category including storage capacity and performance and customer support. Gluster Storage software provides a platform for managing rich media content stores to match the demands of high-resolution digital video without the lock-in and high cost of traditional proprietary storage solutions.

The artistic production team at DWARF Labs uses Gluster Storage software running on industry-standard servers. The IT architecture is designed with storage at the heart of its rich media workload, connected to graphic design workstations and the render farm. With Gluster Storage, DWARF Labs has created a sustainable architecture that reduces data transfer times between workstations and the render farm.

Ranga Rangachari, VP and GM, storage and big data, Red Hat, said: “The media and entertainment industry is facing unprecedented storage challenges, with more than 60 EBs of new digital storage in production by 2020.¹ This drives the need for cost-effective, scalable and performant storage infrastructure. Red Hat is excited to help improve the artistic creativity at DWARF Labs through its deployment of Red Hat Gluster Storage and its scalable software-defined storage architecture which delivers high production values and the smoothest rendering possible.“

Olivier Pinol, CEO, DWARF Labs, said: “My experience working with the big American film studios made me look at open source solutions. I’ve already tried and tested their reliability and low operating costs. Our trials of solutions on the market backed up this view, both in terms of performance and support, which are key parts of our specifications. Obviously, the technical aspect played a huge part in the decision-making process for us, but the key to open source lies mainly in the Red Hat team’s ability to guarantee customer service and support. The suitability of what Red Hat offered was extremely reassuring on this point and that was what managed to convince us. Now, the only thing that limits us is our own creativity.”

¹ Coughlin Associates, The 2015 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment Report, August 2015