eStruxture Blog

The Power of Data Centers: Eliminating Big-Data Transfer Headaches in The Film Industry

Written by Angela Adam | Mar 19, 2020 12:13:02 AM

eStruxture’s data center infrastructure is well poised to serve 21st century digitally driven sectors like the film industry. 

As the largest Canadian-owned and operated cloud and carrier-neutral data center, eStruxture has the capacity, performance and flexibility to run the most demanding, modern enterprise applications. 

The visual effects industry is a core component of modern film production, one that benefits greatly from data centers and cloud computing. In 2019 alone, producers spent $622 million on visual effects in Quebec -- 26 per cent higher than the previous year. And key industry players, such as Technicolor, ReelFX and Raynault VFX regard eStruxture’s data centers as a major asset to their businesses. 

As we all know, binge-watching has become a favourite pastime of consumers over the last few years. Heavy-hitters such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ now account for a whopping 60 percent of Internet traffic in the world and regularly produce a vast array of new content to meet high consumer demand. Amid peak viewer demand, it’s critical for media service providers to use VFX studios that can transfer, process and produce their data quickly and without any headaches. 

Do you work in the visual effects industry? If so, here are a few reasons why you could benefit from eStruxture’s service offering: 

  1. Security:

We know security is critical in your business. If a piece of work -- or even a single scene -- leaks, it can ruin an entire production and damage your reputation. eStruxture is highly secure, experienced and understands the strict guidelines for VFX studios set by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Trusted Partner Network. We realize some studios are not allowed to connect to the public internet or to the cloud during specific productions. 

eStruxture is able to service your diverse needs, whether you connect to the cloud, do cloud-bursting or require a completely dedicated, on-premise, or colocation environment. We offer direct cloud connect and secure dedicated environments, and we are committed to the highest level of security. 

  1. Decreased turnaround times:

We know the visual effect’s processing pipeline is complex, involving several studios working simultaneously on different aspects of a project and computer-intensive activities such as real-time VFX, deep learning being integrated into artists’ tools or light-field technology. We understand it is critical for you to be able to interconnect your systems to process assets quickly and enable streamlined distribution. 

eStruxture’s robust ecosystem of carriers, next-generation peering platforms and state-of-the-art infrastructure delivers connectivity solutions that maximize network reach and quality of service. As a result, you can scale rapidly in response to any unpredictable changes in business.

  1. Resource-intensive workloads: 

High-performance computing and thus high-density cooling and power is paramount in VFX. Accordingly, it has been a key focus of eStruxture’s business to implement sustainable, energy-efficient data centers -- resulting in lower electricity bills and direct cost savings to you. 

eStruxture also understands that workloads such as rendering photorealistic characters and environments, without forgetting the rising trend of digital humans (as seen in Gemini Man or Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame), are major challenges for visual effects studios and very compute-intensive. We offer significant economic benefits to studios through our unique set of capacity-planning tools, high-power densities and reliable connections. You can have peace of mind while working on our favourite shows.

By working with industry-leading partners such as CDW Canada, established in nine large cities across the country, we help our customers wherever and whenever they need to satisfy peak demand. CDW’s StudioCloud was developed explicitly for the entertainment and media industry and has over 100,000 cores and seven data centers across North America. StudioCloud offers VFX customers secure, fully managed and scalable solutions for any size of studio. For instance, this allows one of our customers, Raynault, to rent out nodes in a slower season and, in peak season, when they need to scale up, to rent out nodes from StudioCloud or other studios.

  1. Enabling collaboration through high-density colocation and location convenience: 

eStruxture is dedicated to helping you grow and expand your businesses. Our broad range of connectivity solutions gives you direct access to a growing number of cloud and service providers and keeps bandwidth costs economical. Knowing that you require interconnectivity to facilitate inter-studio collaboration, we offer a 30KW-per-cabinet standard. Our data center offering allows studios to join forces at any given time so they are never more than a cross-connect away from each other and at a competitive price.

With direct access to services such as Beanfield’s HYPERroute, eStruxture’s customers also benefit from ultra-low-latency private point-to-point connectivity between Montreal and strategic cloud on-ramps in the United States. We offer up to 10 gigabit long-haul ethernet connectivity and RTT times as low as 12.1 milliseconds. 

At eStruxture, we also offer EFX customers multiple options for data center locations, with six facilities across Canada offering cloud-neutral solutions. Our locations in Montreal and Vancouver are easily accessible and located close to EFX studios, providing them with close-to-home hosting solutions. 

  1. Varying Workloads with Limited Budgets: 

eStruxture offers cost-effective solutions to help you navigate the ebb and flow of production activity. While taking on a new project can make a studio outgrow the capacity of its on-premise render farms, on the flip side, time between projects can leave studios with unused computer nodes. At eStruxture, we can help you match your revenue to your expenses by offering flexible contract terms, allowing you to control costs and scale your IT resources as needed. 

eStruxture is proud to offer our VFX and animation studio customers a sophisticated data center ecosystem. Our dynamic and reliable data center offering allows them to interconnect with partners, service providers and other members of the VFX ecosystem quickly and cost-effectively.

If you’re a VFX studio keen to up your game, reach out tous via sales@estruxture.com or  via our contact form with any questions. 

We’re here to help.