MEL to use NetApp storage systems for High End Projects

By Christo Jacob   |   Friday, 21 March 2008, 01:31 IST
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Bangalore: Mumbai based Maya Entertainment (MEL) is gearing up to create ripples in $900 million animation industry with its high-end projects. 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. "Production houses are increasingly relying on powerful data storage systems to produce high quality output, on time and within budget," said Soumitra Agarwal, Marketing Director - India, NetApp. 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." The Mumbai-based animation studio, which has offices in Mumbai and Delhi is in the process of delivering two hi-definition international television serials for the UK and U.S. 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. The company also screened its project for Disney. Established in 1996, about 10,000 students is being trained in MEL's NAAC Maya Studo 60 training schools in India. 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. Its previous animation productions include BAFTA nominee "The Tale of Jack Frost", Neopets 'The Darkest Faerie', Rainbow Films' "Tommy and Oscar", and "Weather Kids" for international clients and it has a state of the art 280 seater facility at Mumbai. It also works with Weta digital, Pixar, Industry Logic and Magic, and Animallogic. MEL is owned by a group of investors including Enam Securities, Intel Capital and Bhukhanvala Holdings.