HP technology: the force behind the "Ice Age" movie


If you are looking for a movie to enjoy, why not take a peek at 20th
Century Fox Animation's latest flick, "Ice Age." But don't forget to
check out the credits. HP systems are the computing power that enabled
Blue Sky Studios, a division of 20th Century Fox Animation, to bring
you Scrat and the rest of the gang.

So, whose systems did you think they were? After all, HP is the number
one vendor in high performance server revenue according to a recent
International Data Corporation (IDC) report. And Blue Sky Studios
already knew what HP technology could do for them. Blue Sky used
Compaq systems to create the animated short movie, Bunny, which
resulted in an Academy Award for the special effects company.

 
"Compaq's technology gives us computational strength on a reasonable
number of processors at a cost that makes economic sense. Coupled with
Tru64 UNIX, which allows us to network all these processors together
effectively, this tremendous increase in power will place the studio
firmly in the forefront of digital content creation and innovation."

Carl Ludwig, Vice President Research and Development Blue Sky Studios


The groundbreaking computer-animated feature film,"Ice Age," is the
first feature-length movie to be completely rendered on Compaq servers.
A total of 512 HP AlphaServer DS10L systems were configured into 13
RenderWalls, running HP's Tru64 UNIX® operating system. In addition,
Compaq's TruCluster Server clustering system was used with multiple
AlphaServer ES40 systems, providing more than 3 Terabytes of clustered
storage for production. The system was based on Compaq's StorageWorks
scalable architecture, which allowed additional disks, controllers and
cache to be added incrementally when required.