CCL needed an effective solution for the render farm that would not only be cost-effective, but would strongly hold the network together, and ensure a zero data drop.

Enter the Bandra facility of Century Communications Limited (CCL), and take a hard look. The futuristic studio has a built up area of 5,000 square feet across two floors, houses close to 500 high-end workstations, maintains a 300-odd server render-farm, and is the hotbed of some of the most prestigious trans-national animation productions scheduled to be released this year. It would not be tough to fathom that things were not so simple here a couple of years ago, when the studio was being set up for the first time, and when the IT infrastructure was being put in place over a riveting two-phase process by New Delhi-based Compton Solutions.

Mission Critical
Circa early 2007, Noida-based CCL was doing up its studio in Mumbai at a posh Bandra office, as part of its ambitious plans to extend operations and take up offshore assignments from international studio productions. Pixion one of CCL’s brands, which was to be set into this studio, was heavily into VFX and animation and used high-end IT for its core business application. As part of the process, once a film is shot, audio and video digital effects are added to it. This process requires very high-end graphical workstations and skilled artists. Once the VFX process is complete, the file goes for rendering. The rendering process requires huge computing power from a cluster of servers, computing together. Even during animation, high-end graphical workstations are required.

The requirements for a project of this magnitude were understandably high. A project of the scale that CCL was required mounting the studio to have a minimum of 75-100 high-end servers in clusters. Real estate costs, being what they are in Mumbai, were at a premium. All the data done within the network would also need to be accessed at the same time by multiple hands. Power was another concern, and had to be nothing short of enterprise class because of the sheer nature of the cluster-concept. Importantly, there had to be no disruption of work since a downtime at any point meant losing of an entire patch, which was not acceptable for the animation process. Abhishek Tiwari, one of the directors of CCL recalls, “It was all about high-end technology, high throughput, synchronization on all fronts – right from the workstations to the render farms.”The studio would also have sophisticated applications such as 3D Max, Windows XP Professional, Photoshop, MIAI’s BI tools, amongst others running across the network. So, CCL needed an effective solution for the render farm that would not only be cost-effective, but would strongly hold the network together, and ensure a zero data drop.

Innovation Despite Opposition

Innovation Despite Opposition

While calling for IT tenders, CCL invited a number of names earlier associated with their Noida studio set-up. The solution providers in reckoning spoke about traditional servers, which could smoothly take on the load of such a huge network. Compton Solutions, one of the networking SIs for CCL’s Noida facility, was just one among the contenders. So what tilted the deal in their favour? Sandeep Vahi, Director at Compton narrates, “While all the others pitched on a conventional note, we spoke about blade technology, which had not been attempted before in this industry.”

Having done its own research on CCL’s workflow, Compton’s pitch was a first-of-its kind at the time. The company proposed that putting blade servers on CCL’s render farm was the best way out. The reasons were clear: savings on real estate and power. Compton’s contention was that while a traditional server would take double the space of a normal server, the reduction in rack and floor space would enable the customer to take on more servers; it was a 4:1 ratio that Compton showed between blade and traditional server positioning. Moreover, blade servers run on one power supply. Vahi adds, “We showed a total cost reduction of about 60 percent compared to the others.”

That clinched the proposal for Compton. A very keen CCL evinced interest. Enthused by the prospect, Compton went back to its blade server vendor, HP, with the idea. But, the story was far from over. Vahi states, “They told us categorically that the blade server was not certified for the multiple applications on the client network and all these would not run on blade servers, and that they would neither support the POC in any way, nor support us if things did not work out.” HP went a step further and stipulated that Compton would have to purchase the equipment outright for the POC.

Not one to be easily disheartened, Vahi hatched his own plan of action. He decided that he would take a loan of Rs 9 lakh for the POC. He then felt that a transparent dialogue was in order. Vahi says, “We told CCL about what transpired with HP; their reply was quite firm — they said as long as our deliverables to them were good, they did not care for vendor support or whatsoever.” Buoyed by this, Compton went back to HP, bought the POC equipment, and initiated the process. CCL studied the HP blade technology carefully and tested it in the rendering process at Pixion. Along the HP Blade Servers, Tiwari of CCL studied the key features of Foundry core switch, which seemingly had all the ingredients to provide high through-put and high availability for Century’s environment. Compton took on the onus of application support on itself. For this purpose, the SI had to be sure of the skill set components of the applications he had to support. Wasting no time, Compton hired specialists for each component, and tested each application on a smaller scale. Says a proud Vahi, “Though resource crunched, the only thing on our mind was success.” And that is precisely what they achieved — the applications ran without a hitch on the blade.

No Looking Back
After the success of the POC, there was no looking back. By mid 2007, things began in full swing. HP high-end workstations were placed at the front end, while HP blade technology was deployed for the render farm and all this was connected to Foundry switches. The first phase of the project was budgeted at around Rs 7.5 crore. Compton installed about 150 workstations and 90 servers. In late 2007, CCL came back to Compton with a deal for a phase-II. Tiwari of CCL quotes, “In our industry, we have erratic timings. Compton’s technical expertise and unstinted dedication during phase-I gave us the confidence to go with them for the next phase.” Phase-II was a Rs 25 crore investment. This time round, Compton installed 340 workstations and about 210 servers on the render farm; the solution provider improvised over the earlier phase and added a lot of security certifications. This was done keeping in mind the international standards and compliances that CCL’s clients wanted. Compton also added Precision ACs. Vahi assesses, “Phase I was a learning curve. We organized ourselves better during phase II, kept ourselves abreast of international developments and gave value additions.”

The results and benefits are there for all to see. CCL has come back to Compton for a studio plan in Chennai, where they tentatively plan to put up about 250 workstations and about 400 blade servers. Tiwari adds, “We have high targets in front of us and we will keep IT at core of all our activities. Compton is fast and flexible in this — two important qualities for them to be associated with us till date.” CCL, on its side, has moved on to eyeing acquisitions overseas. The company has also reportedly landed some prestigious projects from international studios of the likes of Warner Bros. Says Vahi, “We believe that the critical cutting-edge technology delivered from our end has contributed in some measure in CCL being able to take on the kind of targets they have set for themselves for the next three years.” A combination of perseverance, risk-taking and dedication has defined the success mantra for Compton, and CCL is the perfect case in point. Vahi signs off, “We have learnt a lesson in resilience in the face of odds.”