Architecture update

In addition to adjustments in the frontend, we have made many optimizations in the architecture in the last six months. These adjustments are not immediately apparent. Therefore, we want to inform you about how we could continuously improve the performance of ARRI Webgate.

Often, data must be delivered as quickly as possible. To make this possible, we took a closer look at the uploads to ARRI Webgate. We could achieve three times as much upload bandwidth through customization. Also, we could massively accelerate the uploads of many individual files. In addition, we have introduced a monitoring that allows us to monitor all uploads. If your uploads are slow, we recommend first to take a look at your possible bandwidth for example with Speedtest. If you have enough bandwidth and an upload is nevertheless slowly from now on we can support you better.

The biggest change in architecture in the last six months has been the creation of a storage cluster. Switching from a few to many storage servers offers many advantages. Each file is no longer saved twice, but even secured in three places. The reliability is thus greatly increased. This has already been proven when in May one of our data centers suffered a power outage during to a thunderstorm. Due to the distributed data, the failure of individual servers could be compensated for a very long time. There was only a short interruption and after a restart of the affected servers, the operation could be resumed seamlessly. Another great advantage of our cluster is that the maximum download speeds have been significantly increased.

The cluster also offers advantages in scalability of storage and backup. If more space is needed in ARRI Webgate, it is very easy to add new storages to the cluster. It is the same with the transcoders. By automating the server setup, we can add ad hoc new servers to our render farm.

All existing servers are constantly monitored by us using various tools. If a malfunction or breakdown occurs, we will be informed by e-mail or SMS and can react directly to it. The web server and the ARRI Webgate database are protected by a failover server. If there is a failure, we can quickly switch to the secondary web server. On July 3, there was a technical interruption in the data center what caused a short downtime. Just when we wanted to do the switch, however, the malfunction was already fixed in the data center.

The rendering in ARRI Webgate has been redesigned. The stability of the renderings could thus be continuously improved. The changes make it easier for us to debug rendering errors, should they occur.

The deletion of objects in the ARRI Webgate was relatively slow in the past. Through our changes the deleted storage space is directly available to you, folder sizes are adjusted directly.

Best regards
Your ARRI Webgate Team

Published at: July 23, 2018 02:00 PM

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