News & Events

March 8, 2011

The computing power required to create each pixel-perfect image in an animated feature film is nothing short of mind-boggling. But most production houses simply can’t afford to buy the machines outright. This is where Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – such as that offered by SteamEngine in the making of Happy Feet 2 – comes to the fore.

SteamEngine, a Sydney-based provider of High Performance Computing (HPC) cloud infrastructure, has been engaged by production house Dr D to provide more than half of the “bare metal” needed to generate the animation in Happy Feet 2.

Via its HP machines, which sit in the Harbour MSP data centre in Sydney, SteamEngine is supplying close to 600 servers for the production of the film. These nodes will be hard at work throughout much of 2011 while the team at Dr D generates and edits more than 240,000 4K images.

“IaaS is the ideal solution for any business that requires access to short bursts of massive compute power. There is no case for investing in the infrastructure yourself – and facing the associated ongoing costs around maintenance and physical storage,” said Stefan Gillard, Commercial Director, SteamEngine.

Based on the utility model, IaaS enables a business like Dr D to boost its capacity when needed, while avoiding a range of op-ex costs such as the hire of IT support staff and ongoing power/cooling bills. In addition, it is a great way to avoid costly lock-in to vendor contracts.

SteamEngine is building a strong reputation in the IaaS space. The recent Longhaus Pulse: Trusted IAAS Cloud Providers report ranked SteamEngine 20th out of 58 vendors, and classified it as “challenging” the current market leaders. This result places SteamEngine in the top 30% of trusted IaaS providers in the Australian market.

HP technology drives IaaS

HP Blade servers are an ideal fit for the Happy Feet 2 project. In the media and entertainment industry, the HP Blade has carved a reputation for reliability and utility, with most large film production houses using the technology.

SteamEngine chose HP for similar reasons. “The Blade is ideal for our target industries – not just media and entertainment, but also finance, telecommunications, government, geoscience, biomedical and engineering. It lets us achieve great density and power efficiency in the data centre, while delivering optimum reliability and expandability,” said Gillard.

The company will continue to invest in new server infrastructure, all of which will be hosted at Harbour MSP. With 1000 nodes currently online, SteamEngine is planning to install an additional tranche of nodes in coming months, to bring its total capacity to 2000 nodes.

Having previously rendered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for Rising Sun Pictures in Adelaide, and with a healthy pipeline of new projects, demand for the SteamEngine is strong – particularly as more businesses realise the cost and performance benefits of using IaaS.

Working with Frontline and Harbour MSP

Frontline is proud of its association with SteamEngine, which uses Frontline Professional Services, our service desk, procurement services and co-location facilities.

“Frontline has the availability and scalability our business depends upon. They are a great strategic fit for our business,” said Gillard.

If you require any further information about the possibilities SteamEngine can offer your company, please contact Stefan Gillard.