5600 K Productions in Canada Customer of AC&NC

If you need to produce some advertising, a corporate film, television content, a documentary, or even a feature film, you can turn to 5600 K production / MH5, a provider of film and video services.

You’ll have access to the full gamut of pre-production, production, and post-productions capabilities, from scripting and set design, to direction and lighting, to editing, color correction, and even animation. Its name stems from the temperature of sunlight at noon-5,600° Kelvin.

5600 K has a presence in both North America and Europe with his HQs and studios in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada, some 90 miles east of Montreal, and a sales office in Laval, near Montreal. With 25 qualified employees, the firm ensures that very film and video need is met.

Challenge
To support its growth, 5600 K built a second production studio in Quebec province, this one more spacious at over 5,000 square feet. The firm as producing a large film project in the studio and needed to enable 8 editors and 2 3D animators to concurrently access and work with high-resolution footage. They had to store terabytes of data not weekly, but daily.

The company’s legacy server, however, while once adequate for smaller projects, lacked both the speed and capacity to handle such torrents of data.

The challenge was especially pressing because meeting deadlines and safeguarding its clients’ work are essential to 5600 K’s business. Moreover, the company required a solution that was quick to deploy so it could commence production. It turned to Montreal-based APY MTL, Inc., a provider of computers and video and studio equipment for the gaming, film, and video industries.

“APY is our long trusted partner because it understands our demand for the highest-quality solutions,” said Martin Saulnier, producer and director, 5600 K productions/MH5. “To produce our current project as well as all those going forward, we required uncompromising speed and reliability with our storage. With that in mind, APY had every confidence that a JetStor solution from AC&NC would meet our every need.“

Solution:

• A JetStor 816FX FC SAN platform from Advanced Computer & Network Corporation (AC&NC)

System Configuration:

• A JetStor 816FX FC SAN platform with 16 12TB SAS drives
• 16Gb FC HBAs from Atto Technology
• Server from APY
• 10GbE  network switch

Benefits Immediately Realized
APY recommended a JetStor 816FX FC SAN platform for 5600 K’s studio.

“We have long relied on JetStor products to meet our clients’ storage needs,” said Antoine Laroche, VP of operations, APY MTL. “We knew from many prior installations that JetStor products deliver the performance, capacity, and dependability that 5600 K needed. Additionally, the JetStor 816FX device is near plug’n play, making it quick to deploy.“

Thanks to its ease of its installation, the JetStor 816FX platform was up and running in little time, supporting 5600 K’s team of editors and animators. They use software such as Tiger Store for collaborative file sharing and Tiger Spaces for efficient project management, Final Cut Pro for advanced video editing, and DaVinci Resolve for post-production tasks like color correction, visual effects, and motion graphics.

Up to 5TB of multi-camera footage are reliably stored on the JetStor 816FX solution every day.

“Our JetStor 816FX system has met our every expectation,” said Justin Antippa, producer and director, 5600 K productions/MH5. “Even with 8 editors and 2 animators working with huge files simultaneously, the solution provides the speed and reliability to meet our every deadline. Our clients are happy, which makes us happy.“

How we did it?
The production company installed a 3U JetStor 816FX FC platform with a 12TB SAS drive in each of its 16 bays for a total of 192TB of capacity. It also acquired 2 more drives to serve as backups.

The JetStor device features dual-active controllers that operate concurrently. This architecture doubles the available host bandwidth, enhances utilization of system resources, and maximizes throughput.

If one controller fails, the other controller will takeover all storage services.  

The JetStor 816FX array is configured or RAID-6 that protects vs. the failure of 2 disks, making it for mission critical applicationsThe JetStor 816FX system links via dual 16Gb/s fiber links to an APY server, which connects to a network switch with 4x10Gb/s fiber links. Mac and PC workstations attach to the switch at 10Gb/s speed. The result is a robust, reliable SAN, capable of supporting the largest film and video file.

To backup and archive its data, 5600 K attached an mLogic LTO-9 tape device to its JetStor 816FX platform. Copies of files are stored on 18TB tape cartridges.

Conclusion
Thanks to its JetStor 816FX FC solution, 5600 K gained high-end storage services to support its studio.

“We will never compromise on quality, which why our JetStor storage solution was our best option,” said Saulnier. “The fact that it was cost-effective was an added bonus. The partnership between AC&NC and APY enabled us to meet our clients’ most demanding shoots and their tightest deadlines. We’re more than satisfied.“