The client is a studio dedicated to product 3D animation, producing CG-effect commercials to international standards for well-known brands in the 3C digital sector. As its production scale and asset volume grew in step, the existing storage architecture could no longer keep pace with the business. The client engaged UnicoNet to rebuild a video and audio storage platform that balances capacity, speed and cost.

Client Background

The client's core business is product 3D animation and CG-effect production. Daily workflows depend heavily on large models, textures, image sequences and intermediate render files. Such assets are large in size and written and read constantly, and several artists often need to edit the same project online at the same time — which places demanding requirements on capacity, bandwidth and concurrency simultaneously.

Challenges

1. Massive data volumes: As the business expanded, data volume grew sharply. The client forecast that data would approach PB scale within the next three to five years, creating an urgent need for cost-effective storage able to absorb the increase.
2. High speed and high concurrency: Beyond the existing data, the platform had to carry new data generated continuously by daily production. Close to 100 animators work on 4K HD editing at the same time, requiring read and write throughput above 2 GB/s.
3. Mixed workloads: In addition to data storage and online editing, the same platform also had to host everyday office applications such as OA and CRM.

Solution

UnicoNet built a three-tier architecture around ENSICE NAS cluster storage and ENSICE U2 series servers, allowing capacity, compute and applications to scale independently:

• Storage tier: ENSICE NAS cluster storage holds the full set of video and audio assets. Cluster deployment delivers linear scaling of both capacity and performance, meeting growth towards PB scale.
• Compute tier: ENSICE U2 series servers run high-performance workloads such as editing, compositing and rendering. Multi-port link aggregation and network path redundancy keep throughput stable under highly concurrent access.
• Application tier: A single file access entry point serves production workstations and office applications, so production, office and Internet access run in parallel on one architecture.

Figure 1: Three-tier architecture of the video storage platform (ENSICE NAS cluster storage → ENSICE U2 series servers → applications)

Solution Highlights

• A single-namespace, high-capacity storage pool centralises production assets and avoids version conflicts caused by scattered copies.
• The cluster architecture supports online expansion, so capacity and performance grow with production scale without service interruption.
• Path redundancy and multi-port link aggregation mean a single point of failure will not stop editing work, sustaining the bandwidth that 4K online editing requires.
• Storage and office applications share one platform, reducing the range of equipment, rack space and total cost of ownership (TCO).

Client Benefits

Once the platform went live, production teams could ingest assets, edit online and export finished work inside a single storage pool, meeting concurrent read and write demands from close to 100 artists working on 4K HD material at the same time. Office applications such as OA and CRM run partition-separated from production workloads on the same architecture, noticeably reducing operational complexity. The cluster architecture also leaves a smooth expansion path towards PB scale, letting the client invest in stages that follow its business rhythm.

Applicable Scenarios

The architectural approach also suits clients in post-production, advertising design, industrial design and game art — any industry built around large unstructured assets that requires concurrent online editing by many users.

Note: This case study is compiled from the client's project material. Actual equipment models, capacity and performance are subject to the final test report and quotation.