Special effects company makes a bigger splash in Hollywood and lends a hand to Sherlock Holmes with Dell blade servers

clip_image002Organisations in the arts and entertainment industry are helping create special effects for some of the world’s biggest box office successes. One in particular – Double Negative, based in the UK – has been behind some fantastic scenes in recent movies such as Sherlock Holmes and Prince of Persia. In Double Negative’s case, the company needed more server power to keep pace with developments in special effects software. However, it couldn’t simply add more servers to its server farms, because it risked increasing management complexity, and the company’s small IT team didn’t have time for the extra administration. Plus, Double Negative was already close to reaching the limits of its power supplies.

clip_image004Double Negative looked at Dell’s PowerEdge™ blade servers as a way to enable growth. The IT team tested the theory with some demonstration blades and quickly agreed it had found the ideal solution. The team then proceeded to deploy 304 blade servers in 19 modular blade enclosures – completing implementation within just two and a half days.

Today, Double Negative is attracting more and more interest among Hollywood’s movie moguls. The great thing is that it can deliver the latest processing-intensive special effects without increasing energy consumption. And daily management is simpler than ever, so IT staff have more time to innovate. Finally, with Dell ProSupport for IT at the other end of the phone line, the IT team feels that it can maintain server performance and ensure business continuity for clients regardless of what issues may arise.

Read more about Double Negative’s story.

About the Author: Kathy Mahady