A Dot Hill Case Study of SGO Mistika
We all store what we need most often in an easily accessible place. It’s like your pantry. The coffee sits in front while the canned ham settles in the back. You don’t throw it out, just in case. Our customer, SGO Mistika, has storage needs similar to this pantry. They need fast access to current projects and extra capacity for older projects, just in case.
SGO is prominent in the media and entertainment industry where creative manipulation is important in real time, but storing past productions is also vital. SGO realized it could have its cake and eat it too with Dot Hill’s smart, simple, storage.
Who is SGO?
SGO is headquartered in Madrid and is an established leading European developer of high-end storage solutions for the post production and broadcast industries. Its high-end post
Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit
The Bulk of It
This creative manipulation requires effective data storage as explained by Geoff Mills, the director of global sales and operations at SGO.
“True open SAN connectivity allows Mistika’s storage to be used across multiple Mistika systems, while third-party creative systems can read and write to the same storage in the background. With video productions continuously pushing the boundaries, access to fast and cost effective storage technology is vital for us.”
The storage platform used by Mistika must also support demanding workflows. “Our customers demand a storage platform that can support demanding workflows, for example, multiple 2k stereo streams using 16bit DPX file formats, and the Dot Hill AssuredSAN™ arrays have proved fully capable of any workflow we have subjected them to,” said Mills.
In the past, SGO Mistika has been used for final rendering and correction in leading stereoscopic 3D video productions. One of these includes an upcoming release (2012) which strays beyond the standard 24 frames per second to an astonishing 48 fps.
In order to obtain strong performance density for demanding workloads, the SGO Mistika platform takes advantage of the Dot Hill AssuredSAN™ 3722 systems. These allow up to 24 2.5-inch drives per 2RU.
Alongside the performance density offered by the products of the AssuredSAN family is its characteristic of flexibility allowing for freely mixed-drive types including SAS, SATA, and SSD. This allocates storage resources based on workload and data life cycle.
“Very often we will deploy a shelf of high performance SAS drives in conjunction with multiple shelves of SATA technology to cater for both high performance real time workflows alongside less demanding VFX, finishing and archival storage needs,” says Mills.
Not only does the AssuredSAN range meet end user requirements on the spot, it offers opportunities for expansion and growth with eight expansion chassis per configuration which hosts either 2.5 or 3.5-inch drives.
More Essential Elements for Post-production Storage
- Energy saving drive-spin-down
- The Patented EcoStor™ battery-free alternative for cache memory
- RAIDar 2.0 intuitive web-based interface
Dot Hill’s AssuredSAN range allows you to readily access necessary information while storing the rest for those just in case moments. It’s rock solid storage at a competitive price, and you don’t have to do a thing.
The 'ring'
