Boxer Systems install fibre channel network for MPC

Boxer Systems have installed a RIO controller from Chaparral into Soho's Moving Picture Company (MPC).
As part of a new Digital Lab based around Quantel IQ technology, the Lab is capable of working at a range of formats including 2K and HD, and is a major addition to the already formidable MPC facility. Boxer Systems were selected to project manage and install the infrastructure, including central storage, HD matrix, monitoring, extensive HD cabling and patch fields.
The heart of the storage system is eight Terrabytes of high speed fibre channel shared disks based around the new RIO controller from Chaparral. The central data pool is used to ensure the process of scanning, grading, compositing and recording out to film all happens with the minimum of data transfers. The RIO provides a number of high speed 2Gb host access ports tightly integrated into the storage control. Coupled with ADIC's CVFS file sharing software, the total data bandwidth available is measured in 100's of Megabytes per second. High availability is provided by redundant components, hot spare disks and remote monitoring of alarm conditions.
The system was initially installed with 4 TB of storage, but it soon became apparent that production time could be saved by holding more data on this highly available central store. The decision was then taken to double the capacity to 8 TB.
The expansion was achieved whilst the system was live, demonstrating the flexibility provided by the RIO's architecture.
(GB)