Visual Effects Studio Atomic Fiction Leverages Qumulo

Qumulo, Inc., provider of data-aware scale-out NAS, announced that Atomic Fiction has chosen Qumulo to improve performance and keep pace with escalating I/O and capacity demands.

Atomic Fiction is a cloud-based visual effects studio whose work has wowed viewers of big-budget films including Star Trek Into Darkness and Looper, as well as powerhouse TV hits like Game of Thrones. As the studio’s growth spiked, its storage system failed to keep up, which prompted Robert Jordan, head of systems, systems engineering and IT, to search for a new storage solution.

Qumulo offers a data-aware scale-out NAS, delivering real-time analytics that provides visibility into data usage and storage across flexible, fast and scalable commodity hardware. Jordan was particularly drawn to Qumulo’s data analytics, and after further evaluation of specifications and functionality, it became obvious that Qumulo was the hands-down superior solution for Atomic Fiction.

Atomic Fiction deployed 120TB of storage across 10 nodes of Qumulo’s QC24 hybrid storage appliances and results are exceeding the company’s high standards. Production teams are seeing improvement in performance for rendering and other VFX-related workloads. However, it’s the real-time, data-aware analytics that have emerged as a key differentiator – delivering the actionable insight that had been missing for Atomic Fiction. The studio has real-time performance visibility to recognize hot files and directories, allowing Jordan’s team to ensure those resources remain readily available. The data analytics also give the team up-to-date information regarding capacity and usage and that’s information he can even share with users.

“People’s behavior is influenced by direct, immediate feedback on the impact their work is having on the system, and it can’t just be at a macro level,” said Jordan. “With Qumulo, our employees can see real-time graphs that update as they work – providing that granular visibility is surprisingly effective.“

Atomic Fiction was also pleased with the ongoing, personalized and dedicated customer service it receives from their Qumulo Care customer success team.

“From sales to engineering, feature ideas to configuration questions – the whole experience has been just fantastic,” said Jordan. “Qumulo Care is probably the number one thing I like about working with the company. In fact, it’s been one of the best vendor experiences I’ve ever had.“

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