Media Technology Provider Eight Solutions Chooses Qumulo

Qumulo, Inc., in data-aware scale-out NAS, announced that Eight Solutions, Inc. has chosen Qumulo to accommodate growing capacity, throughput and analytics needs.

Eight Solutions is a media technology provider in Vancouver, BC, known for its proprietary Cumul8 data visualization, workflow and conversion software that targets the entertainment and digital media industry, along with other markets. Eight Solutions 3D stereoscopic conversion technology in particular is known through its 3D conversion of such movies as Maleficent, Godzilla, 300: Rise of an Empire, The Amazing Spider-Man and other blockbuster films.

As Eight Solutions expands its emphasis on big data solutions, it needed to not only grow its own storage capacity and performance, but also create an internal software development environment for testing, workflow modeling, etc. As Eight Solutions looked at various scale-out storage solutions, the team took notice of Qumulo.

Qumulo offers a data-aware scale-out NAS, delivering real-time analytics that provide visibility into data usage and storage across flexible, fast and scalable commodity hardware. Eight Solutions saw in Qumulo a kindred spirit, as both companies work hard to enable customers to unlock the potential of data. Jason Navarro, the company’s IT manager, realized that Qumulo’s data analytics would not only give his team a better understanding of how its own storage was being used, but also integrate that visibility into its Cumul8 software to provide customers with a new level of data insight.

Qumulo also exceeded Eight Solution’s performance expectations specifically, on the single-stream threading that was important for Eight Solutions particular use case.

“I ran performance tests, and Qumulo was right at the top of the list,” notes Navarro. “The performance it delivered was outstanding.”

Eight Solutions found all of the power that Qumulo offered was affordable. Qumulo is designed around a ‘ay-as-you-grow strategy that allows for scalability in both system and cost. From Installation to usability and maintenance, Qumulo also proved to be straightforward and simple to use.

“From the moment we installed it, the Qumulo cluster has been rock solid,” said Navarro. “I spend zero time managing the system, and that’s my metric for good storage: I don’t ever want to see it. I just set up my notifications and monitoring, every now and then do a quick health check, and that’s it. The Qumulo storage just works.”

Qumulo’s data analytics have been a bonus for Navarro’s team, giving them insight into data, capacity and performance-usage across all the various business groups under the Eight Solutions umbrella.

In addition, Navarro has been surprised by his experience with the Qumulo Care team, which is readily available whenever needed.

“People don’t see support when they first choose to work with a vendor, but I love my Qumulo Care team and it’s the single biggest reason why I would continue to buy from Qumulo,” he said. “I never have to explain myself because the team already knows my environment ‘inside and out.’ You don’t get that with other vendors.”

Ultimately Eight Solutions has found that Qumulo is designed for a modern IT environment.

“Qumulo is adapted to the new world of mobile and cloud and SaaS, building not just the technology but also its business practices from the ground up to suit that environment. To be honest, everything about Qumulo just screams ‘we listen,’” concluded Navarro.

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