Rendering in the Cloud

1. Rendering in the Cloud

2. ABOUT SOFTLAYER

3. 5
SOFTLAYER: FROM A STARTUP TO A GLOBAL
CLOUD LEADER
• Set up in 2005
• Founded on the
principles of
Innovation,
Empowerment,
Automation and
Integration
• Acquired by IBM in
July 2013
• Is now the
foundation for
IBM’s cloud
services portfolio:
IaaS, PaaS, and
SaaS services
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
• In 2014, IBM
announced its $1.2
billion investment
to expand the its
cloud footprint
• Since 2014,
SoftLayer has
doubled its overall
computing
capacity, adding
more than 10 data
centers to its
global network

4. RENDERING

5. 7
WHAT IS RENDERING?
Rendering is the process of generating images by a computer.
It is often used to describe meshing, simulation, encoding,
and conversion.
Rendering for animation requires HUGE amounts of CPU and RAM.
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD

6. 8
RENDERING REQUIREMENTS
Compute power
Render farms: a cluster of
high-performing computers
built to generate images
that require industrial-scale
rendering
Investment
On-premises or collocated
render farms usually
require upfront costs,
hardware, software, etc.
Time
Each second of film can contain
up to 60 frames (images)
Each frame can take up to
one hour to render
If 30 seconds of film has
60fps = 1,800 frames (1,800
hours of rendering)
That’s 10 weeks of rendering
for 30 seconds of film!
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD

7. 9
RESOURCES REQUIRED FOR ONE
ANIMATED FILM
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
9
5YEARS TO PRODUCE
*SOURCE: DREAMWORKS ANIMATION, APRIL 2015
300+ 17,000+ 75,000,000
200,000,000,000,000
500,000,000
ARTISTS CORES CPU HOURS
BYTES OF DATA
DIGITAL FILES

8. 10
INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIRED TO RENDER
ONE ANIMATED FILM
How many servers
needed to provide
17,000 cores?
A dual 14 Core server
has 28 cores
That’s 608 servers
How much is 75m
CPU hours?
Divided by 17k Cores
= 4,412 hours for
each core
Running 24hrs per
day, that’s equal to
183 days (6 months)
These machines
aren’t cheap…
Intel Xeon Haswell v3
2690 + 256GB RAM =
£5,000
£5,000 x 608 = £3
Million just for the
Hardware
Plus software,
colocation, networks,
power and people!
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD

9. RENDERING IN
THE CLOUD

10. 12
IS CLOUD ACTUALLY MORE EXPENSIVE?
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
SCENARIO LOCAL CLOUD DELTA
Raw Hardware +
Software
$8,500 $51,246 -$42, 746
Loaded True
Local
$18,000 $51,246 -$33,246
Continuous
Cloud Usage
$18,000 $43,362 -$25,362
50% Peak vs.
Avg@ Utilization
$18,000 $21,681 -$3,681
Days Off $18,000 $14,681 $3,031
Instance Type
Efficiency
$18,000 $10,478 $7,522
Cost Over Time $18,000 $6,287 $11,713
*SOURCE: ATOMIC FICTION, APRIL 2015

11. 13
WHY CLOUD MAKES SENSE
Waiting for servers
to finish rendering?
Expand your capacity
in the cloud.
Already own lots of
servers?
Only when they’re
fully utilised, burst
into the cloud.
Finding it expensive
to keep IT
infrastructure up to
date?
With SoftLayer you
can refresh your IT
whenever you need.
Managing a number
data centres in
different countries?
Deal with a single
provider globally.
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD

12. 14
SO, WHAT’S HOLDING THE INDUSTRY BACK?
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
14
52%
60%
53%
18%
42%
SECURITY
COMPUTE COST
PIPELINE ISSUES
USABILITY
OTHER (DATA TRANSFER)
COMPANIES CONSIDERING CLOUD FOR MEDIA RENDERING
*SOURCE: AUTODESK, APRIL 2015

13. 1515
WHY SOFTLAYER?
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
Select from customizable security options, including
Intel TXT, firewalls, SSL certificates, and assistance
with compliance.
SECURITY
COMPUTE COST
PIPELINE ISSUES
USABILITY
Choose from a broad selection of customizable
virtual and bare metal servers, as well as NVIDA
GRID and Tesla GPUs and NetApp storage.
OTHER
(DATA TRANSFER)
Internal consideration, not applicable to
infrastructure provider.
Manage your infrastructure via PC, tablet and
mobile. Easy-to-understand portal offering full
control of infrastructure, along with 24/7 support.
All private network bandwidth included. Charges
only applicable to egress traffic to the Internet
after 5TB (VMs) and 20TB (bare metal) monthly
allowances, per server, are fully used up.

14. 16
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
GLOBAL REACH WITH LOCAL PRESENCE
Data centres near every major filmmaking location
enable low-latency connectivity to cloud infrastructure.

15. 17
WHY SOFTLAYER PARTNERS WITH SOHONET
• Focus on media and entertainment
• Expertise in connectivity and storage
• Extensive local-loop in key media cities
• Trusted brand for 20 years
• SoftLayer offers Sohonet customers:
 Virtual + bare metal cloud servers
 A plethora of storage options
 Data centres located in or near major media cities
 The ability to install any operating system
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD

16. 18
PROJECTED POPULARITY OF
CLOUD MEDIA RENDERING
SOFTLAYER – RENDERING IN THE CLOUD
NOW 1 YEAR 5 YEARS
88%
12%
60%
40%
30%
70%
*SOURCE: AUTODESK, APRIL 2015

17. bshrive@softlayer.com