Leveraging the incredible price/performance value of commodity PC servers and workstations with the enterprise strength of ZFS file sharing software, LumaForge and Lucid Technology combine forces to provide M&E clients with the most cost-effective shared storage solution available on the market today. The LumaZAN collaborative workflow platform delivers rock solid, dependable shared storage across a fast, easy to manage data network that unites artist workstations with back-end servers in an elegant and affordable integrated workflow solution.
CEO of LumaForge, Neil Smith observes that, “The demand for reliable and cost-effective shared storage for digital content workflows is only going to grow. Hollywood and the M&E industry are rapidly moving to a 4K acquisition and finishing pipeline. As resolution, frame rates and the sheer volume of digital content increases, the demand for cost-effective shared storage solutions is going to increase exponentially. We’ve spent many years working mastering the ‘knack of workflow optimization’ in order to deliver maximum performance with maximum ROI. The result of the extensive fieldwork with our customers is the LumaZAN collaborative workflow platform. LumaZAN provides Open IT solutions that combine hardware, software and middleware in ways that are incredibly well suited and cost-effective for digital content pipelines.”
At the core of the LumaZAN solution platform is the LucidNAS shared storage file system from Lucid Technology. LucidNAS storage software is built on a UNIX foundation that includes ZFS, the most advanced enterprise file system available today. ZFS brings a wealth of benefits to the LucidNAS storage solution, including native I/O pooling, end-to-end data integrity, and unlimited snapshot capabilities. And to further increase the software utility, Lucid Technology adds an intuitive and comprehensive data management front-end for organizing and administering all aspects of the unified storage solution.
Vadim Carter, President of Lucid Technology explains the importance of ZFS as part of the LucidNAS file sharing architecture. “Traditional fiber channel SANs (Storage Area Networks) are expensive to install and difficult to maintain for small to medium M&E companies. Our unique LucidNAS GUI interface allows customers to install, set-up and manage their LucidNAS storage pools with the minimum amount of hassle. ZFS is a modern 21st century storage architecture that provides high performance scalability with solid data integrity that just cannot be found in any alternative approach. The LucidNAS unique Hybrid Storage Pool architecture automatically caches data on RAM or SSDs to provide optimal performance and exceptional efficiency, while ensuring that data remains safely stored on reliable and high capacity hard-disk drive storage pools.”
By leveraging the Hybrid Storage Pool architecture of LucidNAS, the LumaZAN collaborative workflow platform allows Post-production facilities, VFX houses and studios to benefit from the price/performance value of commodity hardware and the functionality of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) applications from companies like Autodesk, Adobe, Apple, Avid, Blackmagic Design and The Foundry. Many of these powerful desktop tools are being re-architected to take advantage of OpenCL and high powered GPUs. LumaForge is working closely with the software companies and AMD to ensure that the LumaZAN collaboration platform incorporates the latest advances in OpenCL and FirePro™ GPU technology.
“Open IT standards like ZFS, Unix and OpenCL are critical to sustaining the technological innovation taking place in M&E market,” says Smith. “The days of single vendor proprietary lock-in are over. Customers increasingly want freedom of choice over their strategic hardware and software platforms. The LumaZAN collaboration platform means that customers can choose the hardware, software and networking combination that best meets their budgetary and performance requirements., The added advantage of the LumaZAN platform is that we never hold your data hostage. At any time, your valuable data and video files can easily be moved to any other ZFS platform at the drop of a hat.”
The LumaZAN collaborative workflow platform will premier at the 2014 Creative Storage Conference in Culver City on Tuesday June 24th with an in-depth follow up seminar on Saturday June 28th on The Lot in West Hollywood.
For more information on the 2014 Creative Storage Conference visit http://www.creativestorage.org/index.htm
For more information on the ‘LumaZAN Collaborative Workflow Seminar’ visit Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lumazan-collaborative-workflow-seminar-saturday-june-28th-tickets-11972342599
For more information about Lucid Technology and the powerful LucidNAS file sharing system, visit http://www.lucidti.com
For more information about LumaForge and its products and services, visit www.lumaforge.com
