Brown Bag Films powers global collaboration with ngenea
- May 20, 2020
- AWS, News
Brown Bag Films powers global collaboration with ngenea
Awarding-winning studio Brown Bag Films – part of 9 Story Media Group – has partnered with Pixit Media to provide an innovative data management solution to help its global development team rapidly share assets and work more efficiently together to bring concepts to the screen – breaking down geographic boundaries, without breaking the bank.
“Frustratingly slow and painfully inefficient.” That’s how Jennie Stacey, 9 Story Media Group’s VP of Development, sums up how files once moved between her teams in Dublin, Toronto and New York. Operating in silos, data management was cumbersome across time-zones – often extending project timelines.
Working closely with Pixit Media, Brown Bag has deployed a tailored PixStor software-defined storage solution, powered by Ngenea dynamic data management, that enables users to efficiently access files across locations around the clock; with a minimal infrastructure investment and the lightest possible impact on bandwidth.
It allows users to search, access and work directly on files in desktop applications – no matter where those files are stored in the organisation. With a unified view of data at sites around the world, files are available to be worked on seamlessly.
Ngenea is the key to success
Software-defined and agnostic, our PixStor storage platform fully integrates with commodity hardware, including Brown Bag’s legacy systems, user applications and in-house pipeline tools. It easily manages petabytes of data and billions of files with guaranteed sustained high-performance, all under a global namespace – offering a single view for all users.
Ngenea, Pixit Media’s dynamic data management layer, extends the PixStor filesystem and toolset across on-premise, multiple locations and out into the cloud. It intelligently pre-migrates files into the global namespace, making them readily available in any location to browse or download as projects demand. Designated working areas are established in the PixStor environment. When data is uploaded, Ngenea automatically updates the filesystem of each remote location to reflect the new content and path, without having to download any data until it is specifically needed – minimising egress costs and delays.
Ngenea was the key to success. Basically, it monitors our sharing servers and keeps everyone in the chain up to date. It gives us complete visibility and control. We now have an elegant cost-effective way to share and work together on files across sites and time-zones - all without the headache and complexity of a global patchwork.
What next with PixStor
Supporting its strategy to operate as a truly globalised company, Brown Bag and 9 Story Media Group’s journey to collaborative nirvana continues at pace with Pixit Media.
“Having solved our initial inter-site file-sharing challenges, we’re now working closely with Pixit Media on the next phase to address our distribution and demanding data-heavy production pipelines,” Brady concludes. “Our end goal is a fully-shared production environment with Shotgun integration, where our creative teams across three continents – including our newly-acquired CG studio in Bali – can work together seamlessly.”
Brady concludes: “Clever technology, clever workflows, really clever people. What we’ve developed together with Pixit Media is truly ground-breaking.”
About Brown Bag Films
Brown Bag Films is one of the industry’s most exciting and technically advanced studios – creating, producing and distributing award-winning animated and live action content for young audiences around the world. With a host of awards, its portfolio includes some of animation’s best-loved shows and short films, made for the biggest names in the business, including Amazon Prime, Netflix, Nickelodeon and BBC. Part of 9 Story Media Group, with over 1000 creative and corporate staff worldwide, Brown Bag has studios in Dublin, New York, Toronto, Manchester and Bali, Indonesia providing full in-house animation, picture and audio post-production facilities and access to the very best artist talent.