MEL deploys NetApp storage systems

BANGALORE, INDIA: Maya Entertainment Ltd. (MEL) is gearing up for a busy year of high end projects. The Mumbai-based animation studio is in the process of delivering two hi-definition international television serials for the UK and US markets. In addition, MEL is working on 72 minutes of high end animation for the Bollywood feature “Toonpur Ka Superhero” starring Ajay Devgun and Kajol.

MEL’s first in-house animated feature project, a mythological epic, has completed the promo stage and is moving into production rapidly. MEL also recently announced a co-production partnership with tennis star Leander Paes to develop a TV series.

Jai Natarajan, EVP – Business Development, MEL said “Our IT infrastructure is critical to our ability to deliver an unprecedented quantum of complex work in heavy formats like hi-defintion and film. A major piece of our infrastructure is centralized data storage – the enterprise-class NetApp FAS 3050 clustered storage system. While we utilize a combination of online and nearline storage, our critical data is served from the NetApp system across a high speed data network. So far the performance and scaleability of the NetApp storage system have been upto our expectations.”

Soumitra Agarwal, Marketing Director - India, NetApp, said “FAS 3050, a NetApp unified storage system, provides the scalability, performance and high reliability which is absolutely critical for a data intensive digital studio like MEL”.

As MEL continues to develop IP as well as offer services, the NetApp system will be at the heart of providing round-the-clock data access for artists and other specialized personnel.

“According to NASSCOM estimates, the digital animation industry in India will be close to US$ 900 million by 2010. Production houses are increasingly relying on powerful data storage systems to produce high quality output, on time and within budget,” concluded Agarwal.