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Tippett Studio Taps SGI InfiniteStorage Solutions to Manage Data Explosion of Special Effects

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The winter crop of Hollywood blockbusters will be bursting with special effects, from computer-generated stand-ins for title characters to the CG creation of entire worlds. Before it reaches the screen, however, the creation of dazzling eye candy results in mountains of visual effects data that need to be stored and managed, and readily available to hundreds of computer graphics artists simultaneously. When the renowned Northern California film visual effects facility, Tippett Studio, needed to store and manage the massive amounts of data expected to be generated in creating the very complex and very special visual effects for The Matrix: Revolutions, Stepford Wives, Hellboy and Starship Troopers 2, they once again turned to Silicon Graphics(R) compute power and expertise to meet their immediate and future needs.

Tippett Studio, tapped SGI and SGI Professional Services to design and implement an SGI(R) InfiniteStorage storage area network (SAN) solution that would incorporate their existing SGI storage system, provide the 14TB of storage needed immediately, and easily scale to larger data storage and management capabilities in the future. Additionally, the SAN needed to connect Tippett's artists' workstations -- a heterogeneous mix of Silicon Graphics(R) Octane2(TM) visual workstations and Linux(R) OS-based workstations and servers for effects and rendering.

An Academy Award(R)-winner for technical achievement and nominated for visual effects on five films over the years, Tippett Studio purchased an InfiniteStorage SAN comprised of SGI(R) TP9500 storage, two 4-processor SGI(R) Origin(R) 350 metadata servers and two 16-port Brocade(R) FibreChannel switches. Tippett was able to leverage its current SGI infrastructure and add it into the SAN under the control of SGI(R) CXFS(TM) shared filesystem, SGI(R) Performance Co-Pilot(TM) monitoring system and SGI(R) FailSafe(TM) high-availability software, supporting a total of 14 terabytes of storage. The existing infrastructure includes a recently purchased SGI(R) Origin(R) 300 fileserver that manages their tape robot, an Origin(R) 2100 server being used as a backup metadata server and an SGI(R) TP9400 storage array.

"The beauty of the SGI InfiniteStorage system is that it enables us to utilize our legacy storage as well as provide a very flexible system that allows us to scale the amount of storage that's on the SAN," said Dan McNamara, head of operations, Tippett Studio. "We can also scale the number of SGI CXFS clients on the SAN. So, if we are bound in terms of the number of the NFS ops the servers can handle, then we can also scale those up appropriately. We're working on a couple of specific sequences for The Matrix: Revolutions that are entirely computer graphics-generated with a very high level of detail. That's pretty hard on a production pipeline, but SGI CXFS easily performs the heavy lifting and improves production speeds admirably.

Tippett also incorporated SGI Failsafe into the system, according to McNamara, "so that we would have confidence that the SAN will present NFS to the end-user clients at all times. A really big plus is that it also enables us to take servers down for maintenance and have the end-users almost invisibly fail-over and connect to the backup server, away from the server that we just took out for maintenance. This is all done without having to make announcements and reboot workstations -- it's seamless to the end-user."

"The SGI InfiniteStorage environment enables our prestigious customers such as Tippett Studio to instantly access data in one shared filesystem across multiple platforms and storage solutions, ultimately delivering more rapid access to the mission-critical data they need to create the scariest insects or the most breath-taking fantasy worlds as well as meet time-crunching studio deadlines," said Chris Golson, senior director, Media Industries, SGI. "Visual effects, digital film labs, and many high-end post-production companies currently rely -- and many are turning to -- SGI InfiniteStorage solutions, reaping the subsequent efficiencies and management benefits to scale to their rapidly expanding data management needs, while also trying to keep the management of their systems as simple as possible."

The flexible and heavy-duty SGI InfiniteStorage system is currently assisting Tippett Studio to complete the finale for The Matrix: Revolutions. Stepford Wives, a comedic remake of the 1975 suburban classic, currently in production, is scheduled for an early summer, 2004 release from Paramount Pictures. The InfiniteStorage system will also handle the heavy lifting for the difficult special effects shots for Hellboy (adapted from the Dark Horse comic) which includes various CG-created creatures.

Starship Troopers 2, directed by Tippett Studio founder Phil Tippett, is currently in post production. All of the visual effects will be completed in-house. Digital set extensions will be created and fans of the original sci- fi flick can count on lots of ever more realistic computer-generated bugs all served by the robust and reliable SGI InfiniteStorage system, installed and integrated by SGI Professional Services.

About SGI InfiniteStorage

With InfiniteStorage, SGI is changing the rules in network storage by delivering hardware and software solutions specifically developed for the unique and demanding needs of data-intensive enterprises. The company's commitment to innovation enables timely availability of new technology, investment protection for existing technology, and a thriving partner community. SGI offers customers a complete family of network storage systems and software that enables customers to match solutions to their data-intensive enterprise needs while providing scalable capacity, management and performance in a cost effective architecture.

About SGI

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. SGI was named on FORTUNE magazine's 2003 list of "Top 100 Companies to Work For." With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at http://www.sgi.com/.

About Tippett Studio

Located in Berkeley, Calif., Tippett Studio was founded in 1983 by Phil Tippett and his partners Jules Roman, President and executive producer, and Craig Hayes, creative director and visual effects supervisor. The studio has more than 225 artists, designers, engineers, technical directors and animators. A visual effects and animation studio for feature films and award-winning television commercials, Tippett Studio has received Academy Award nominations for visual effects for five feature films (Starship Troopers, Dragonheart, Willow, Dragonslayer, and Hollow Man), and won numerous awards for its "Carl & Ray Pet Shop Campaign" for Blockbuster Entertainment. Tippett Studio has also received an Academy Award for technical achievement in the development of a motion-input device for motion capture. Phil Tippett won two Academy Awards for visual effects (Return of the Jedi and Jurassic Park) and two Emmys (Dinosaur! and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor). The studio is also preparing to expand into producing full-length animated feature films and mixed live-action and CGI features.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Origin, XFS, Octane and the SGI logo are registered trademarks andOctane2, CXFS, Performance Co-Pilot, and FailSafe are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Lisa Pistacchio, +1-650-933-5683, or pistacchio@sgi.com, or SGI PR Hotline, +1-650-933-7777, or SGI PR Fax, +1-650-932-0737, all of SGI; or Jim Bloom of Tippett Studio, +1-510-649-9711, or Jbloom@tippett.com.