Audio engineers and mixers at World Wrestling Entertainment's Stamford, CT, production facility now have access to a single, shared pool of storage, which will simplify their content management processes and speed up project completion times.
They're using Isilon's X-Series cluster storage system to facilitate concurrent access to hundreds of thousands of small audio files to allow real-time collaboration between audio suites while reducing the risk of downtime due to equipment outages. Working with system integrator Tekserve, WWE deployed the X-Series to unify its audio editing operations and allow the playback of up to 96 audio tracks and one track of HD video simultaneously across four audio production suites with Fairlight Xynergi consoles.
Using Isilon's SyncIQ software application, WWE staff can now replicate content between its two X-Series clusters, ensuring that audio content is always secure and immediately available.
WWE creates and delivers original content 52 weeks a year in more than 145 countries and 30 languages, reaching more than 500 million homes worldwide. Prior to using Isilon, WWE didn't have a central storage system in the audio post-production group, forcing its audio engineers to manually migrate audio content back and forth between workstations, which limited both production quality and workflow productivity.
Lionel Hightower, vice president of Engineering at WWE, said without a central storage system, a project created in a specific audio suite remained in that suite, putting that project at risk if the suite went offline. Installing the Isilon platform also allows them to consolidate their entire audio editing workflow to enable audio engineers to access any project from any audio suite.
