Brown Bag Films, Europe’s successful creative-led animation studio, has deployed Aspera Sync to enable realtime post production collaboration between its partner studios in Ireland, Mumbai, Singapore and Indonesia. Aspera Sync offers a scalable and multidirectional file-synchronisation and replication solution for moving big data over large distances at high speed. It provides a high-performance alternative, up to 100 times faster than traditional sync and replication technologies, and eliminates the inefficiencies and costs of manually shipping tapes. Brown Bag Films relies on worldwide partner studios, often in far-flung locations, for portions of its animation workflow. To successfully manage the ever greater number of projects in its pipeline, and increasingly handle the big data demands of 3D and HD productions, Brown Bag Films needed a realtime 24/7 collaboration solution to enable quick and easy filesharing with its worldwide partners. Other key requirements for the file solution were that it had to be fast, reliable and stable while ensuring no file corruption occurred during transfers. Brown Bag Films selected and deployed Aspera Sync to move and replicate file sets between sites in the background and leveraged a web-based production tracking system to keep track of all replicated files and versions in a ‘hands-free’ operation. Users at the overseas studios simply access files via storage mounted to their desktops. When users place the finished files back onto the mounted drive, Aspera Sync automatically transfers all new or modified files at high speed back to Ireland, where Brown Bag Films’ internally developed tools create a ‘package’ of files, ensuring correct naming convention. To support smaller animation studios on an ad-hoc basis, Brown Bag Films deployed Aspera Connect server, which enables anyone to download files from the central server using an install-on-demand browser plug-in. This overcomes previous issues of users having to install FTP clients and makes the whole experience a lot easier for smaller studio partners. Incorporating Aspera Sync software into its existing pipeline has enabled Brown Bag Films to integrate more closely with its overseas partner studios, and facilitate realtime collaboration between artists and producers across time zones.www.brownbagfilms.com
