Learn how AWS and its partners are helping studios work with the best talent around the world to produce some of the most popular, award-winning content for the big and small screen. We cover several in-depth post-production topics around real-world VFX studio pipelines in this customer-focused session. AWS customers will present their hybrid model architecture for burst cloud compute as well as a cloud-first studio where there is no storage or compute on-premises any more. Fake news, or can this be a reality in 2018? 

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Studio in the Cloud:
Producing Content on AWS
M A E 2 0 2
Mike Owen
Solutions Architect
AWS Thinkbox
Jeff Bell
Chief Operating Officer
Tangent Animation
Samuel Reid
Head of Technology
Untold Studios

3. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.© 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

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Media and Entertainment in AWS
AWS Cloud
AWS Core Services provide true primitives on which to build modular, custom solutions.
Compute
Database
Networking
CDN AI/MLOrchestration
StorageSecurity

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AWS Global Infrastructure
19 geographic Regions – 57 Availability Zones
Announced plans for 15
more Availability Zones
and 5 more AWS Regions
Bahrain
Cape Town
Hong Kong SAR
Milan
Stockholm
# Indicates # of AZs in the Region

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AWS Global Network
19 Re gio n s
57 Availability Zones
150 Glo b a l Clo udFro n t P o P s
93 Dire ct Co n n e ct L o ca tio n s

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Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
• Select compute that best fits your render profile. Match the architecture to the job, not vice versa.
• Optimize price/performance of your render workloads with widest range of compute instances.
• Benefit from the AWS pace of innovation.
General
purpose Dense
storage
Compute
optimized
FPGAs
CUDA
GPU
Big data
optimized
TESLA
CUDA
Graphics
Desktop
Memory
optimized
M5 D2 X1T3 C5d F1M5d P3H1 Z1dG3X1e I3 C5
High
I/O
Burstable
Compute and
memory intensive
R5
Memory
intensive
In-memory
T3a M5a R5a
U-6TB1.metal U-9B1.metal U-12TB1.metal
I3.
metal
Z1d.
metal
R5.
metal
R5d

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Amazon EC2 purchasing options

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Storage is a platform
EFS EBS NVMe S3 Glacier
Object
NFS/CIFS
WEKA
ZFS Pixit GPFS
QUMULO
AVERE
ZADARANETAPP
BlockFile

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Hybrid rendering
Studio On-Premise AWS Region
Direct
Connect
VPN
Users & Admins DNS
Active Directory
File Server Cache Cluster
License Server
Dispatcher
DAM/Production
Tracking System
Data Transfer
rsync / UDPPython
(boto)
AWS CLI
DNS Forwarder
VPN Gateway Virtual
Cache Cluster
NFS File Server
Assets
Cloud Storage
Amazon
CloudWatch
AWS
CloudTrail
AWS
Management
Console
AWS Personal
Health
Dashboard
AWS Trusted
Advisor
AWS Cost
Explorer
AWS Cost and
Usage Report
AWS Budgets
Amazon EC2 Spot Instances
IAM Users
VPN Gateway

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Hybrid rendering
Studio On-Premise AWS Region
Direct
Connect
VPN
Users & Admins DNS
Active Directory
File Server Cache Cluster
License Server
Dispatcher
DAM/Production
Tracking System
Data Transfer
rsync / UDPPython
(boto)
AWS CLI
DNS Forwarder
VPN Gateway Virtual
Cache Cluster
NFS File Server
Assets
Cloud Storage
Amazon
CloudWatch
AWS
CloudTrail
AWS
Management
Console
AWS Personal
Health
Dashboard
AWS Trusted
Advisor
AWS Cost
Explorer
AWS Cost and
Usage Report
AWS Budgets
Amazon EC2 Spot Instances
IAM Users
VPN Gateway

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Deadline hybrid rendering
Studio On-Premise
Assets S3 EBS Volume
Deadline
AWS Portal
Infrastructure
Direct Connect
VPN
AWS Region
VPC
Deadline AWS
Portal Link
Asset File ServerDeadline
Render Nodes
Deadline DB
Repository
Spot Fleet
Deadline EC2 Spot Instances

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Licensing on demand

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Security
• Security will always be job one at AWS
• Best practices mapped to MPAA standards
• Audited by ISE for Tier-1 compliance with major studios
• Studio-approved security hardening PDF guides:
• Studio Security Controls for VFX/Rendering
• Pre-Released Studios Media/Asset Management Hardening Guide
• AWS sits on the TPN advisory committee
“By 2018, the 60% of enterprises that implement appropriate cloud visibility
and control tools will experience one-third fewer security failures”
Gartner January 23, 2017

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4.5 million rendering hours and
170,000 simultaneous cores
Sherlock Gnomes, image courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Problem statement:
• Full-length animated feature film
• Scope of the project increased during production with demands
for a more refined look
• Multiple iterations were necessary to deliver the director’s vision
Use of EC2 Spot and AWS Thinkbox team:
• 4.5 million hours rendered with EC2 Spot instances
• Peaked at 170,000 cores
• 3 rendering locations: on-premises render farm in Paris combined
with 2 additional AWS data centers in Europe
• AWS Thinkbox team helped architect a solution that would work
for their pipeline (they did not use AWS Thinkbox Deadline)
Business benefits:
• Massive scalability and elasticity for rendering - scope of project
would not have been possible scaling up only on-premises
• Creative iteration was up to three times faster

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Adrift, image courtesy of Milk Visual Effects
Problem statement:
Use of AWS Thinkbox Deadline & Amazon EC2 Spot:
Business benefits:

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18. JEFF BELL – COO
RE:INVENT – CLOUD RENDERING ON AWS – NOVEMBER 26, 2018

19. Who is Tangent?
 Independent animation studio with offices in Winnipeg and Toronto
 Delivered 2 Feature Films: “Ozzy” in 2016 and “Next Gen” in 2018
 3 divisions – Animation, Technology, and Releasing
 180 people
1

20. “Next Gen” - The Challenge
 Create a 96 minute animated feature film:
 3 different versions of the movie
 Render at DCI 2K resolution
 100% moving camera for all shots
 Path tracing renderer
 Crowds
 Lots of visual effects
 Use Blender, an open source 3d application
2

22. Background – “Next Gen”
 Created by Baozou - a Chinese social media
 Timeline – 2 years
 Strategy – Engage Chinese and Western Audiences
 Production - Distributed
 Distribution – Worldwide
3

23. Compute Requirements
 Delivery specs:
 DCI 2K 2048 x 1080 with a 2.39:1 crop
 96 minutes * 24 fps = 139,680 Frames
 Mandarin Lip Sync
 2D Netflix delivery
 Stereo English and Mandarin Chinese
 363,168 Total Frames
4

24. Rendering Requirements
 Assumptions:
 4 hour per frame for renders
 Redo factor 1.5 times
 Render Farm utilization: 70%
 Hours of Rendering
Frames 363,168 (all versions)
Hours/frame (3.76) 1,365,512 Hours
Redo Factor (1.5) 2,048,268 Hours
Utilization (70%) 2,926,096 Hours
5

25. Compute Resources
 Our Farm:
 Servers - HP chassis/blade
 Workstations
 Daily compute hours:
 Blades: 550 Blades * 24hours * 100% = 13,200 hours/day
 Workstations: 180 Machines * 24hours * 50% = 2,160 hrs/day
 Total render hours available per day = 15,360
6

26. Compute Resources - Requirements
Days required to render the show:
Hours of rendering 3,525,323
Render resource per day 15,360
Days to render 229
Months to render (30 days) 7.65
 Challenge:
 Rendering is back-end loaded
 Capital Costs to increase internal capacity is high
7

27. Compute Resource Solution – Cloud
 Hours of rendering remaining:
 3,525,323 – 949,016 (26.92% Complete) = 2,576,307
 Render hours Available on own farm:
 3 months * 30 Days * 15,360 = 1,382,400
 Cloud rendering required 1,193,907 hours
 In the last 36 days of the project we peaked at 3000 AWS instances.
8

28. Benefits of Cloud Rendering on AWS
 Deadline Render Manager
 Wide selection of resources via AWS
 Costs are manageable versus internal capital costs
 Allow Creative changes late in the game
10

29. Costs and Break Even
 Easy to determine break even between Cloud and Internal compute
 Capital cost requirements to build a farm of 3000 machines for 30-60
days of work is just not practical.
 Our desire is to move to the cloud for all operations
 Added benefit for Tangent: no licensing costs with Open Source Blender
content creation software.
11

30. 333-70 Arthur Street
Winnipeg, MB, Canada
M5A 4L5
260 King St East,
Toronto, ON, Canada
R3B 1G7
Thank You
Jeff Bell, Vice President & COO
12

31. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

43. Router
VPC
Private subnet
Availability Zone 1
AWS Region
Private subnet
Availability Zone 2
Encrypted
data
S3NVMeS3NVMe
Encrypted
data
On-Premise
Artist

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46. Thank you!
© 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Mike Owen
Solutions Architect
AWS Thinkbox

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