With operations in Dublin and Belfast, JAM Media creates and produces animated and live action content for the children’s and pre-school audience for clients including Amazon Studios, BBC and Nickelodeon.

Apparently frustrated by data failures from previous solutions, it sought recommendations for a new system from reseller Tyrell. That led them to Pixit Media and the successful installation of a 300TB, scalable PixStor software-defined system.

“Other storage systems on the market will only guarantee sustained performance up to 60-70% capacity so you’re paying for 30% of your storage to remain unutilised at all times,” comments Pixit Media’s Andrew Wierzan, VP Global Sales. “PixStor’s filesystem uses a scatter algorithm to homogenise disk performance at any scale, which means we can underwrite the performance of any solution we provide up to 99% capacity. There’s no need to worry about capacity and bandwidth or projects getting bogged down as your teams demand more. With PixStor you can keep your workflows running at maximum intensity all of the time.”

“Pixit Media has an in-depth understanding of VFX pipelines and the team went above and beyond to get the best out of our entire workflow,” comments JAM Media CTO, Scott McDonnell. “Even under immense pressure and when everyone is hammering the system, we now get sustained high-performance and reliable stability from our central storage, which is what we need to deliver projects on time and continue to grow the business.”

PixStor provides a single global namespace that controls all hardware, applications and systems in the workflow - presenting a unified view of all data and serving JAM’s multiple Mac seats, 20 Maya artists, 5 Nuke 2D, 15 After Affects Harmony, and a 35 CPU V-Ray Render-Farm seamlessly.

Jessy & Nessy is a good example of the sort of demands placed on the system. The 40 x 11-minute series for Amazon Prime is a complex, hybrid production that mixes live-action, puppetry, 2D and 3D animation. The PixStor solution - featuring NetApp E-Series storage hardware and Mellanox networking – reliably supports this demanding pipeline and ensures JAM Media’s animators can focus on the most creative elements of their work - without the frustration of delays and data failure.

“Adopting PixStor storage has been a game-changer for us,” concludes McDonnell. “We are no longer constrained by our infrastructure. Our artists can focus on their craft, not the storage, and that’s increased our productivity and creative output.”