5 tips for Successfully Migrating Post-Production to the cloud (Part 2 of 5)
Tip #2: Determine if work is persistent or project-based
Author: Denise Muyco CEO & Co-founder |
Part #2 of this 5-part Blog series addresses the fundamental issue of how persistent work or intermittent work will affect the path you make in your migration to the cloud.
Let’s start with Security - do you have clients who require certain security measures?
- If no, then you are in good shape, and you will be able to use your cloud infrastructure and data flows with limited to no adjustment, however, you may be limited in who your clientele could be. Something you may want to consider in the not-too-distant future.
- If yes, note that most Studios (film, game, animation, or otherwise) generally require you to have some level of security for data at rest, motion and storage. It is critical to understand these requirements and to address early in your cloud migration and make adjustments prior to your integration. When you are choosing infrastructure, creative software, and other software solutions – share you plan and general architectural approach with your cloud partner. This will likely reduce time and unnecessary/costly mistakes. Consulting firms such as Convergent Risks https://convergentrisks.com/ are great resources for risk assessment and compliance services should you need additional reviews.
Persistent vs Intermittent work
- Persistent work: The definition of persistent work is that you have clients who are usually the same and you/your team are working more than 80% in a given calendar year. The more persistent the engagement and the higher the touchpoints with multiple parties, the higher the level of security will be beyond the aforementioned. Your workflows and general architecture will be established and your infrastructure and creative software utilization should be understood. Always leave room for scaling and an N + 1 situation. Not all projects are created equal and the ability to burst and scale up and down is one of the many attributes of the cloud, but you want to optimize on cost. Therefore, examine what you have consumed for your workstation, storage and render needs over the last few years (if you are new, just estimate). You will have options to secure cloud infrastructure at different prices: mainly Fixed amounts of infrastructure for a certain period (the least expensive), Reserved (the infrastructure is not on, but it is reserved), then On-demand (this is most expensive).
- Intermittent work: The definition of intermittent work is when you may have a few clients to several clients, however, the amount of work you and your team have is either undetermined relative to annual capacity and/or your work is usually 60% or less confirmed in a given calendar year. Although this may be good for leading a balance life and you/your team may only want to work when a project suits you, choosing a solution and migrating to the cloud can be tricky and expensive. However, there are solutions you/your team can adopt to interoperate and leverage cloud storage – an essential part of the content creation workflow.
The content creation industry is the original gig-economy. The way projects are managed and maintained are generally separate and distinct with their own individual budget with project-based teams. This means we must be flexible and have lots of burst capability. Remember to consider the following when determining if your work will be short-term or require longer-term resources--those resources being:
- Technology infrastructure and creative software tools burst-ability. Make sure you review your software licenses and confirm that they are interoperable with the cloud software with the correct operating system. Some commercial software companies have enabled the use of their software in the cloud. This may require you to contact the software company to exchange your license for a cloud license. As an alternative, there are ecosystem solution providers that enable micro-renting of creative software--for smaller companies or intermittent teams, this is highly recommended. As described above, Virtual (cloud) infrastructure including storage, compute resources (workstation & render nodes), and networking have more favorable pricing for those work teams and organizations that make a long term commitment (one to three years) and even a deeper discount if you have higher unit quantity – more common for persistent work groups. On-demand pricing is available and generally is more expensive, but the value in this is that you do not have to pay for infrastructure that is idle. When opening up new geos, be mindful of price variants, as large swings happen.
- Your team - People that do the work - Artist/Producers/IT/Game developers/Architects/Visual effects artists. Sourcing the right teams and providing both a secure and easy-to-access virtual environment (including the right infrastructure and software creation tools) is paramount to be successful in both coordination efforts and final work product.. The cloud provides remote teams the ability to work in multi-region/time zones, but managing the coordination of both project teams and assigning technical resources requires the right solutions. Make sure you either choose a solution to enable solid identity management as well as allocation of both software and infrastructure OR find a solution or tools that manage all of this orchestration and allocation. The ability to quick start and scale technical resources to your team is important for maintaining and managing costs. The ability to easily scale and add/remove team members to your secure environment is equally critical.
Overall, if the nature of the work is persistent and the workforce is in fixed region(s) and there is predictability in your projected forecast, having a direct relationship with a cloud provider is important. There are infrastructure orchestration solutions that enable you to leverage your own cloud tenancy.*
*Tenancy - cloud tenancy is a specific account dedicated to you that you pay monthly for a period of time. You have control over the infrastructure, networking and ways to deploy 3rd party software. If you are deploying your own code into your tenancy, generally speaking there are development operations tools that can support this effort.
If you are unsure about your clientele and work variability, you may want to pursue solutions that support full orchestration of infrastructure, software marketplaces, or various point solutions that will enable you to create efficiencies with both cost and time.
Are you ready to migrate your creative projects to the cloud? Want to learn more about solutions that are enabling secure project environments and how to collaborate with persistent and project-based teams to produce efficiently in the cloud? Let’s talk!
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