SINGAPORE, August 7 – In an announcement, NetApp, a global data-centric software company, revealed the renewal of its strategic alliance and co-engineering partnership with DreamWorks Animation. The partnership agreement ensures that NetApp remains the preferred cloud data services provider for the studio as it continues to evolve its hybrid cloud environment, emphasizing enhanced productivity, flexibility, and agility. DreamWorks Animation, known for its groundbreaking animated films, including the recent release of “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” has been pushing the boundaries of animation for over 25 years.
Throughout this journey, NetApp has played a pivotal role in providing the studio with cutting-edge solutions to manage their production demands and data complexity. The co-engineering partnership between NetApp and DreamWorks Animation brings together engineers from both organizations to solve real-world engineering challenges, optimizing workflows in a hybrid cloud environment and reducing latency.
Gabrielle Boko, CMO at NetApp, highlighted the close collaboration between the two companies, stating, “We’ve worked in lockstep with DreamWorks Animation to enable the studio’s digital transformation journey and accelerate its growth with NetApp’s product portfolio and the innovations resulting from our co-engineering efforts.” NetApp’s All Flash Array solutions have been instrumental in managing the studio’s complex data requirements, simplifying workflows, and allowing animators to focus on creativity.
The alliance between NetApp and DreamWorks Animation has yielded technological advancements that have greatly benefitted the studio. These include improved performance in DreamWorks’ high-performance computing environment using NetApp AFF, efficient data tiering with NetApp StorageGrid, increased agility through applications extended to the cloud using Azure NetApp Files and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, and reduced latency and datacenter footprint with NetApp ONTAP systems utilizing NetApp All Flash Arrays for energy and rackspace efficiency.
Bill Ballew, Chief Technology Officer at DreamWorks Animation, expressed the significance of NetApp’s data management services for the studio’s operations. “DreamWorks’ actual end product is completely composed of data. In fact, we generate up to a petabyte of data for each film, and we couldn’t bring the imaginative storytelling of our animated films to life without the world-class data management services that NetApp provides,” said Ballew.
The alliance between NetApp and DreamWorks Animation continues to drive innovation in visual storytelling for each film produced by the studio. NetApp’s innovative technologies help manage the massive amount of data generated during production, ensuring optimal data storage performance, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.
Matthew Swinbourne, CTO, Cloud Architecture, NetApp Asia Pacific, emphasized the significance of hybrid cloud storage in today’s digital-first business environment. “NetApp is excited to partner with organizations to better manage their data across the hybrid cloud to deliver greater productivity, agility, and cost efficiency to their operations, increasing their business competitiveness in the long haul,” said Swinbourne.
The extended partnership between NetApp and DreamWorks Animation reflects their shared commitment to innovation and the continuous evolution of their hybrid cloud environment, paving the way for future groundbreaking animated films and technological advancements in the animation industry.
