At NAB NY 2018, Facilis (Stand N.627), a leading international supplier of cost-effective, high performance shared storage solutions for collaborative media production networks will showcase Version 7.1 features and FastTracker 2.5. Built for the rigors of 4K+ video post-production, HDR, and VR 360 productions, the latest release of the Facilis Shared File System continues to distance itself from garden-variety NAS (Network Attached Storage) storage solutions available from so many vendors today.
Unlike traditional NAS systems, Facilis is a shared file system and avoids the workflow issues inherent in NAS when used in a cross-platform creative environment. With simple project-based volume management and user access control, administrators can manage Fibre Channel and Ethernet clients with the same multi-user write access. Facilis shared storage systems have additional improvements on NAS, including local-attached volume appearance, cross-connectivity failover, and one-touch remote volume mounting.
“New York City sets the bar high for storage and infrastructure as facilities continually compete and challenge themselves with the highest standards while also being increasingly budget conscious,” says James McKenna, VP of Sales and Marketing at Facilis. “We spend a lot of time educating facility managers on what they should expect from a shared storage network and where bottlenecks can occur with standard NAS-based systems. We understand that budgets are tighter than ever, so we’re delivering functionality that customers didn’t think was possible at an incredibly competitive price.”
Version 7.1 adds many additional features that help with the administration of large and small environments alike. Features include real-time and historical bandwidth monitoring of volumes and workstations; RAID50 and RAID51 management through Admin Console; Preferred connection address for multi-path networks; Automatic load balancing of clients across server IPs; Remote client deployment for ease of upgrades in multi-client facilities.
Version 2.5 of the Facilis FastTracker will also be shown at NAB NY. FastTracker is designed for cataloging, searching, and accessing media on all attached storage. Using the new Adobe Panel for Premiere Pro and After Effects, all indexed data is available directly within the Adobe interface. Users can preview local storage assets as well as LTFS and network-based assets for easy locating of media beyond what an OS or app level search can provide.
“The new FastTracker Adobe Panel interface has been well received from our many Adobe-based customers,” adds McKenna. “By adopting a painless policy of indexing and cataloguing data with FastTracker, organisations have increased efficiency, and provided the creative staff with full access to the facility library.”
The new Facilis Hub Server, which has been deployed at several large and notable customer sites, will also be on display. The Facilis Hub Server optimizes drive groups and increases the bandwidth available from standard TerraBlock storage systems. It gives new customers a way to scale bandwidth through dynamic aggregation, and current customers a way to extend the usable life of older systems. With speeds over 4GB/sec available from a single virtual project-based volume, Hub Server systems offer industry-leading capability.
“After evaluating several different network servers, we found that not all storage is the same,” said Troy Thompson, Owner of Running Man, “Some solutions demand too much complexity in the configuration and workflow to achieve even short-bursts of the speeds they advertise. Facilis started up and ran smooth the minute I plugged it in. They really have their system dialed-in for this kind of work.”
