DreamWorks Data Center: Less than 20% of cloud and virtualization

You might think that their data center should be a cloud data center, a fully virtualized, flat architecture, and solid state storage (SSD) when you look at the computer effects screen produced by DreamWorks Studios. If you really think so, that's wrong half.

Cutler, global director of infrastructure operations at DreamWorks Animation, said that only about 15% of DreamWorks ' servers were virtualized, and only about 20% of the computer-animated rendering work was done using cloud services, and DreamWorks has yet to find out what it needs for SSDs.

Dream Factory Data Center storage capacity of 3.8PB, with 4000 servers, 25000 CPU. The workspace also provides free food and health care services to employees.

California Redwood City DreamWorks Studio appearance

Although DreamWorks ' servers are not using a lot of hypervisor technology, they have invested heavily in state-of-the-art blades, storage arrays, and networks to ensure that artists are able to work satisfactorily and efficiently.

"The biggest investment we have here is technology, because we have to make sure that artists and engineers are happy to work here," says Kate Swanborg, who is responsible for corporate marketing at DreamWorks. They're here every day, and if you can't provide the most advanced technology, they'll find another job. ”

DreamWorks has two studios in the United States, one in Bangalore, 3 films a year, and almost 3 years for each film production cycle. DreamWorks will have 8 to 10 films in the making process almost any period of time. And, according to Swanborg, as each film is released, the quality requirements of the computer effects screen are rising.

In the production of a 3D film, the amount of computing power and storage capacity is very large. More than 300 high-end workstations are required to work at the same time. The rendering of a movie requires the use of 17,000 processor cores at the same time, more than 60 million hours.

Each animated character needs up to 2000 control points or functions to be fully manipulated by the passive artist. It takes 6 months for everyone to make a thing. "Every pixel in each movie is controllable," Swanborg said. The pixel in a piece is over 250 billion.

A statue of Po in Kung Fu Panda outside the free cafeteria of DreamWorks employees.

24 frames per second, 120,000 frames per movie, and only one movie produces 500 million data files that require 200TB of storage. "This capacity is the same as producing a Boeing plane," Swanborg said.

There are about 400,000 processing processes to be performed on the studio server every day. DreamWorks uses Red Hat Enterprise MRG to dispatch these process and process messages. "Most processes are executed in parallel," Cutler said.

The people involved in the production of the film are not developers, and DreamWorks has 150 software engineers to ensure smooth operation of various applications, said Jeff Wike, director of research and Development at the Redwood City studio in DreamWorks. Wike said that about 20% of the software engineers at DreamWorks had doctorates, and he himself gave up a "promising job" in the aerospace industry.

"Every 3 months there is a movie, and every movie is completely different. So everything here is fresh, "Wike said.

Over the past 3 years, DreamWorks software engineers have implemented software parallelism, giving full play to Intel's newest 16-core Sandy Bridge processor.

"We are not going to develop all the software ourselves, but most of them are developed by ourselves." We can buy it, we have to develop it ourselves, "Wike said." "Our advantage is that there is a CEO who is very, very fond of technology but does not know what technology is pushing us away." It was remarkable that he did not know what was difficult and what was impossible. He just said we should have the tools to do such things. Then we scratching, ' Well, we should be able to do that. ’”

The amount of work in a piece is staggering, and the cost is of course very impressive. Take "Shrek 4" for example, the 90-minute animation costs about 130 million dollars, and then requires an additional 130 million dollars and 150 million dollars for distribution and marketing.

Although the final film is made of computer, but the creation of a cartoon still need manual drawing. Every film in DreamWorks has a storyboard, and each scene requires the artist to draw it manually. Each film needs about 70,000 to 100,000 storyboard.

HP 3Par Storage Cabinet

Most of the IT infrastructure of DreamWorks employs HP's BladeSystem C-class server Blade, with about 3000 pieces, each of which is pre-configured with computing, storage, and network architectures. The DreamWorks also uses HP's NAS and 3Par storage arrays. The only exception is the use of a small amount of HDS storage arrays and NetApp nas.

The server cabinets of DreamWorks Studios are equipped with ventilation "chimneys" that can expel hot air upwards. "The hot and cold currents never mix," Cutler said. "So you don't need a cooling system. ”

A row of HP Blade server cabinet. The heat from the server is discharged into a closed chimney, so no additional air-conditioning is needed.

The first 3D imaging technology was used in the movie "Monsters vs Aliens" in 2009, and computer production has been constantly pushing up the technical needs of DreamWorks. 3D movies require an extra 100TB storage because many screens are doubled.

At the end of the holiday season, MGM's "Hobbit" will be the first to use 48 frames per second of the film production.

"If the audience approves of this experience, it will have a huge impact on storage and rendering," Wike said.