Apr 12, 2022
Finishing is one of the most important processes in the media and entertainment workflow. Tools like Autodesk Flame® and DaVinci Resolve® have been used by studios over the years to make their projects stand out and evoke emotion from the viewer via color grading and other finishing processes.
Until recently these studios have relied on SAN infrastructures built with Fibre Channel HBAs to achieve the ultra-high-performance levels needed to complete these tasks. Ethernet-connected storage was relegated to other areas of the post-production workflow mainly due to barriers in the TCP stack that limited performance.
Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) is a newer technology that can be used by Ethernet NICs to transfer data between each other with direct memory access but without using the TCP stack which virtually eliminates overhead. Fibre Channel has always used similar technology to reduce overhead called Direct Memory Access (DMA). By combining RDMA with the latest high-speed Ethernet devices supporting 25/40/50/100GbE standards the storage industry has started to remove the barriers in place with shared storage over Ethernet.
Unfortunately, just because these new technologies exist does not mean they are easy to adopt, implement, or scale. In fact, we have heard from many customers who have had very frustrating experiences installing and configuring servers and clients to share storage via Ethernet especially setting up RDMA enabled transfers.
These are some of the reasons ATTO developed our ATTO 360™ Tuning, Monitoring and Analytics Software application. Storage vendors, like Dell, quickly saw the power and utility in ATTO 360 and partnered with us to simplify, optimize, and analyze Ethernet connections to storage.
Our latest collaboration with the Dell OneFS™ storage team includes a custom installer that lets ATTO FastFrame™ SmartNIC users configure their clients instantly for NFS over RDMA transfers to OneFS storage. This reduces the complexity of setting up these clients and allows users to start working on their projects faster than ever before while eliminating costly downtime.
This new installer combined with our existing custom tuning profiles and diagnostics in ATTO 360 for OneFS offers the most comprehensive solution between client adapter and storage vendor in the industry today.
ATTO booth N4814 and Dell booth N4413 at NAB 2022 are conveniently right next to each other! Stop by to learn more about our joint solutions.
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