SAN Networking Questions

[Vik Narayan]

Good question Bob, let me explain. I am stepping into a new role as a editor/post supervisor in my new job. I have been a post guy for many years but have worked in either local AVID storage, AVID Unity, or XSAN environments in large installations where the IT guys or contracted pros took care of all the back end stuff so I could get in and edit.

Till 2 weeks back Rorke Data was “some ‘joe schmo’ company that had sold fibrejet software to these guys a few years back” and i needed to get an upgrade from them now. The Fibrenetix Cubex storage they have currently is aging fast and will need to be replaced soon. Every vendor likes to tout their product as the best/most cost effecient/ etc. etc. and I know better than to take them at face value without due research. I had no idea fibre management software licenses were this expensive per client; it was already eating into the post budget. I was trying to see if moving away from fibre would be a viable option – therefore my question “is this overkill?” I wanted to find out what other solutions were out there? Who are the trusted names? Was todays “copper” technology the cheaper yet reliable way to go, much like SATA drives have caught up with SCSI drives.

Since I was in unchartered waters here, but knew I had to make some strategic decisions now and in the future, I came to the place and the people I trust, the Cow forums. Through this conversation, and by scouring through similar threads, I have learned a lot (atleast compared to where i was). I am starting to understand how to estimate bandwidth based on the codec, # of clients, and # of streams, and then calculate how much headroom Gig E/10 Gig E/Fibre will provide. The very fact that I mentioned Rorke Data in my last post was because i read one of your posts on a different thread where you spoke highly about their products. Similarly, I have learned that Small Tree is another major player offering high performance copper based solutions. I feel more confident about looking at their products without worrying that I am being served the proverbial cool-aid. I am planning to stop by their booths at NAB. Maybe I’ll run into you as well 🙂

I apologize if I came across as if I was taking all of you for a pointless ride. I am not looking to buy a Porche at the price of a Hyundai. I just want to make sure I am getting a Porche when I pay for one. I assure you I leave with knowledge gained.

Vik Narayan

[Bob Zelin]

Vik writes –
I had no idea fibre management software licenses were this expensive per client; it was already eating into the post budget.

REPLY – let me explain something to you, to be very clear. Both you and I have been doing this for a very long time. The world has changed. Today computers are cheaper than ever, so are monitors, speakers, mixers, and the NLE software to run these computers. Today, in 2011, your “post budget” IS your storage (and your shared storage, network, archiving, asset management). NOTHING else is expensive. The cost of building a new 4 seat SAN system WITH the 4 NLE editors is the same cost as buying a single AVID 10 years ago.
And today, you are not buying expensive VTR’s like you did in the past. So your post budget today consists of “what storage are we going to buy, and should it be shared storage”.

All the companies discussed on this forum are good companies – all the products work. You may know that I am tied in with the Final Share solution, but all the solutions that are discussed on this forum all work. It’s your job to call all these companies, and discuss your requirements in detail, so you can make the right decision.

If money was no issue, you would just buy an 8 Gig Fibre Channel XSAN solution and be done with it.

Bob Zelin

[Vik Narayan]

Bob

This realization is definitely dawning on me. I remember the old AVIDs; I worked on the second AVID that came to India back in 1993. It cost more than a nice house in a good neibourhood (i’m not even kidding). Last year, my wife picked up a copy of MC5 for $295 at her university. Figure that!!

Vik Narayan

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Vik,

You really should look at the Final Share solution that Bob mentioned. It works, and would work for your situation.

And, where in India did you first encounter an Avid in 1993? I’m curious, I was there too.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Vik Narayan]

Hi Neil

I was not aware of Final Share till Bob mentioned it. I plan to look into that as an option as well.

As for the AVID, this was in Chennai – the first was a Film Composer brought in by Selva of Audio Media, which was really a feature film recording studio. Selva had the AVID distribution rights for India at that time. The second machine came to an editing studio called TeleVisuals, also in Chennai. I remember people coming from all over the country to see this machine in action. Soon, Prasad Studios acquired a couple. I’m not sure when they arrived in Mumbai, but by the time I moved to Mumbai in 1997, they were everywhere.

Vik Narayan

[Matt Geier]

Hi Vik,

I’ve been following the chat for a while.

Remember using the term Fibre can cause misleading references… Fibre which is most commonly referred to in a tradition SAN environment is Fibre Channel. Just because you have it, doesn’t mean it will always work in real time. — This is true of any solution — “Just because you have it, and it provides great throughput, doesn’t mean it will work in real time”

Small Tree offers Gigabit and 10Gb Ethernet solutions designed for Mac OS X. Ethernet can be run over Copper or Fiber — Ethernet connections. (Not Fibre Channel)

In a real time video editing environment, most people that come across the Ethernet solutions, can get by with Gigabit connections (reliably that can support 2 x Streams of Pro Res) —

Some choose 10Gb for 3 or more streams per timeline, and some prefer 10Gb for fast Pushing and Pulling files to and fro on the storage network.

Gigabit on a Mac – about 100 Mb/sec roughly of through put is available on the wire.
10Gb on a Mac – about 250+ Mb/sec roughly of through put is available on the wire.

This may seem low; however in a Real Time environment, Bandwidth is usually the easy part to get working properly. What you really want to look for is Disk Response times needed for each video thread, often referred to as “Latency” of your storage.

In a Shared Storage environment it all changes; which gives you an overall Network Latency Profile.
Latency is key in real time strategy, along with bandwidth, along with a Solution provider that understands video on a network, shared, and direct attached storage is an even better play.

Having been a bunch of SGI and Cray people at Small Tree, we get that, and know what it takes to get things working in all the right ways, and what to tweak or not tweak to get what you need for Bandwidth performance, and Latency performance required for editing video on the wire….shared or not.

I hope that helps.

Regards,

Matt Geier (Small Tree)
952-641-7433

[Neil Sadwelkar]

[Matt Geier] “Gigabit on a Mac – about 100 Mb/sec roughly of through put is available on the wire.
10Gb on a Mac – about 250+ Mb/sec roughly of through put is available on the wire.”

You mean 100 Mega Bytes/sec for GigE, and 250+ Mega Bytes/sec for 10 GigE?

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Matt Geier]

Yes — Sorry — Thanks for correcting me …

Mb = Megabits
MB = Mega Bytes

My references were to MB….. not Mb… apologies.

[Dave Barnard]

Hi Vik

When looking for ways to improve your SAN on a very tight budget make sure to look at all the variables in the equation to get the things you really need at an affordable cost.

I would recommend getting an independent consultant/systems integrator involved, they will be worth the expense to make the transition happen smoothly.

As you seem to have a 4Gb Fibre Channel setup already in place, upgrading this system would be the most cost effective, as you are thinking. There are a number of things to consider:

1) Storage upgrade – it is possible to upgrade the Fibernetix RAID with larger drives, but this needs some specialist storage experience to do. You will also need to backup your existing data and arrange some days of downtime for this to be done. It is possible to do it without downtime, but you would need to hire in and set up another FC RAID, adding to the cost.

2) MacPro – Unless you have an 8Gb Qlogic switch, there is no immediate advantage in having an 8Gb card in the new machine, and it is much more expensive than a 4Gb card. As you have Atto cards already, it would be best to keep to the same brand, though the cheaper Apple/LSI card may work perfectly well. 4Gb fibre should be fine for the upcoming edits, it will easily handle more than 4 Pro-Res streams.

3) SAN Software – For a small Final Cut editing SAN, volume based SAN software like Fibrejet gives a lot of workflow restrictions – no more than one machine can write to a volume at the same time. Tiger Technology’s MetaSAN is file-based, allowing all machines to read and write to one or more volumes without restriction, and does not require a dedicated metadata controller. I would recommend getting some trial licenses to test it with your setup.

3) Ethernet connectivity – network sharing is possible with the FC RAID, but a much better solution if you are using MetaSAN is to use the complimentary product MetaLAN. This gives a direct connection to the SAN volume over ethernet at a low cost.

4) CatDV – This can be run on the old G5 connected to the SAN by MetaLAN/SAN, though a cheap standard Mac Mini would be much faster in creating proxies. Doing this would allow you to use the G5 as a dedicated SAN metadata controller, which gives considerable benefits for the cost of an extra MetaSAN licence.

cinedigital have designed and installed SAN systems for numerous film & broadcast clients over the past few years, from small post houses with 2 edit suites to large feature film projects with over 20 seats.

A majority of these have used MetaSAN, including the installation at Talkback Thames in the UK, featured in this Apple Pro article:
https://www.apple.com/uk/pro/profiles/talkbackthames/

Note that Apple make no mention of the SAN software they are using for some reason!

As I imagine you are still based in the USA, we are probably somewhat geographically disadvantaged to oversee your upgrade, but I hope this advice a help to you.

Mind you, from recent experience, international flights to the US are not that much more than internal ones! 🙂

All The Best

Dave Barnard
cinedigital Limited
London, UK
https://www.cinedigital.co.uk