Glassworks Deploys Mellanox and Pixit Media

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. and Pixit Media, provider of enterprise-ready storage, network and archive solutions, announced that Glassworks Ltd. has selected a combined Mellanox and Pixit Media solution to power its visual effects (VFX) and post-production storage and networking infrastructure.

Glassworks is using Mellanox’s end-to-end Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) solution, which provides IB and Ethernet connectivity on the same wire, and Pixit Media’s PixStor technology to increase the performance and efficiency of its system without needing to add servers. The solution also future-proofs its infrastructure for 4K workflows.

Glassworks, a European post-production and VFX facility, upgraded the storage and networking architecture in its Amsterdam office to Pixit Media’s new PixStor solution.

PixStor is a unified, scalable storage and networking architecture that guarantees performance to an unlimited number of file-sharing or streaming clients from a single, central storage location. PixStor leverages Mellanox’s end-to-end FDR 56Gb IB and 40/56GbE interconnect solutions with VPI technology to provide a high-performance rate of media data traffic from storage disk to creative application desktop.

“The ability to share project data between creative departments without the need for multiple, proprietary storage systems will have a big impact on our business,” said Will Isaac, head of engineering, Glassworks. “Our creative staff has instant access to content, enabling quicker and more elegant project collaboration at a reduced cost. As an innovator in an evolving industry, we need to be ready to deliver 4K projects without any further investment in our network. It’s a win-win.”

Glassworks projects depend on a collaborative workflow between offline creative applications. These projects require data assets to be shared from a central file repository as well as sent to client-attend finishing suites for grading and editing projects that require sustained playback streams of high resolution sequences. Traditionally, these projects required large, time-consuming data set transfers between the two creative departments.

“I’m impressed with the performance uplift Mellanox has brought to our PixStor solution,” said Barry Evans, technical director, Pixit Media. “Since partnering with Mellanox, we are able to provide customers like Glassworks with significant increases in performance using its existing storage footprint, resulting in considerable cost savings.”

Upgrading its central storage and network to PixStor with VPI technology allows Glassworks to increase streaming rates from the central storage, enabling editing and grading suites to play back simultaneous sequences of 2K resolution material in real-time without the need for copying data locally. PixStor, in partnership with Mellanox, can now scale to up to 8.5PB of useable storage capacity and sustain over 20 streams of uncompressed 4K DPX frame sequences from a standard two-storage-node system.

“Scalable storage networking and high performance data transfer are critical for media businesses,” said Kevin Deierling, VP marketing, Mellanox. “The combined Mellanox and Pixit Media technology offers Glassworks an affordable solution that maximizes ROI and delivers the highest performance currently available in the market.”