Qumulo File Fabric fuses on-prem, cloud storage for studio

Qumulo's File Fabric gives FuseFX ability to burst workloads into Amazon Web Services, giving it a virtual fourth location for file storage for its special effects rendering. For years, visual effects studio FuseFX used Amazon Web Services for cloud bursting for compute while keeping most of its storage on premises. FuseFX had several storage platforms, but none gave it the ability to scale without limits in the cloud, according CTO Jason Fotter. Fotter finally found his AWS storage answer when Qumulo launched its File Fabric last September. Qumulo File Fabric (QF2) runs on premises and in AWS, allowing customers to replicate data between them to set up globally distributed storage clusters. FuseFX has 300 employees in offices in Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver. The studio mainly focuses on television shows such as The Tick, The Walking Dead and The Blacklist, and also provides effects for movies. Fotter said his in-house storage includes Qumulo, Dell EMC Isilon, Quantum StorNext and a Rozo Systems array for backup. An Isilon cluster serves as FuseFX's main production storage. Qumulo serves as storage for the studio's Houdini Simulation software, StorNext enables real-time 4K video playback and Rozo protects it all. "We use different storage systems for different workloads," Fotter said. "I've been telling my storage vendors it would be great to have a cloud storage product -- a clustered file system that sits underneath our render farm and supports any size workloads. Qumulo was the first to come out with a product that hit the marks we needed and worked. It's an elastic workflow that is on demand."