A look at some of the high-density server and networking gear inside the Weta Digital data center used to render the animation for the new James Cameron movie “Avatar.”
Back in December we shared some details about the powerhouse data center at Weta Digital, which is responsible for the digital effect featured in the 3D sci-fi epic ”Avatar.” The stunning visual effects produced at Weta have won several awards in past years and Avatar is nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects.
As the movie continues to generate awards and attention, IT vendors are sharing details of how their systems played a role in creating “Avatar.” Last week NetApp outlined details of how its storage systems helped reduce Weta’s data management overhead by 95 percent and increased storage price-to-performance ratio by 40 percent.
The data challenges faced by Weta Digital came from Avatar being filmed with revolutionary new motion-capture techniques, which generated more data than any other movie in history (more than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy combined). To handle the massive storage requirements and provide fast access to that data, Weta worked with NetApp and Fujitsu New Zealand to develop a scalable storage solution.
NetApp SA600 FlexCache cluster units were selected to maintain high-speed access to texture files being demanded by the 35,000 rendering cores of the renderwall (the computer system used for real-time rendering). The FlexCache units were paired with FAS6000 series storage systems and then linked to the renderwall via two 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections.
HP was another major vendor in the Avatar project, with 4,000 HP BL2
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