Company Overview:

General Assembly is a full-service post-production company based in Culver City, California. It specializes in producing nonfiction storytelling, documentaries, and independent films. The company delivers enterprise-level solutions and tools at economical prices, challenging the historical norms of documentary production costs. 

The Challenge: 

Upon launching, General Assembly faced several critical challenges. The company opened its doors amid two significant Hollywood union strikes that halted production across the industry. Producers and studios sought cost-effective post-production services, particularly for documentary filmmakers, so the need for reliable and budget-friendly solutions became urgent.

General Assembly struggled with managing increasing data volumes and the limitations of its existing infrastructure. They relied predominantly on Mac systems and handled a wide array of media across multiple storage systems, including Quantum SANs for finishing, NAS repositories, LTO tapes for archiving, and cloud solutions for backup. The existing solutions were increasingly inadequate, leading to inefficiencies, wasted time, and potential security risks. They required a tool to integrate seamlessly with various storage architectures and provide reliable and cost-effective data management while adhering to strict security and operational protocols.

Solution: 

General Assembly needed to find a solution to automate their data management processes, adhere to strict protocols, and efficiently integrate with various storage systems. They chose Atempo Miria for several reasons:

• Seamless Integration: It integrates well with diverse storage systems.
• User-Friendly: It allows for easy setup of automation protocols.  
• Scalable: It can manage large volumes of data, ranging from petabytes to exabytes.  

“Miria is the most powerful archival product on the market today. It can handle data at petabyte or even exabyte scales, making it suitable for large-scale data management. It's the only product I know of that can break up extensive file systems into smaller sub-jobs so that all of the drives can be used simultaneously.”

Kevin Frand, Solutions Architect, Alt Systems

Deployment:

The deployment of Atempo Miria involved close collaboration between General Assembly, Atempo's expert team, and their system integration partner, Alt Systems. Working together, they designed a comprehensive deployment strategy explicitly tailored to the unique needs of General Assembly. The process began with extensive discussions and assessments of existing workflows, technologies, and specific challenges. This careful planning was crucial in ensuring that the new system was compatible with their current operations and did not cause major disruption to their overall productivity.

Upon deploying Atempo Miria, General Assembly began using the software to archive their data from multiple sources, including Dell servers and LTO tape drives. Miria's capabilities allowed seamless data archiving to three LTO tape drives from a Dell server without complications.

Training sessions were also held for General Assembly's staff, providing them with the knowledge and skills necessary to leverage the new system effectively.

Enhancing Future Growth:

In their ongoing efforts to optimize data management processes, General Assembly further enhanced their deployment of Miria by incorporating a sync license. This strategic improvement introduced a range of benefits that significantly boosted operational efficiency. Previously, their intermediary secure storage system presented challenges, as studios required all incoming media to be directed to this storage for thorough scanning and inspection before moving to production storage. With the recent update to Miria, which includes the move functionality offered by the sync license, their approach has been transformed. Currently, approximately 60% of all file movements in their facility are managed directly by Miria, and they anticipate increasing this to 80% as they explore and implement additional workflows that take advantage of these new features. 

Results:

Implementing Atempo Miria brought significant immediate benefits to the company. By automating archiving processes, operational efficiency saw marked improvement, allowing the company to enhance customer service and realize cost savings. Miria's compatibility with various storage architectures simplified data management, leading to more reliable and cost-effective operations.

The solution enabled the company to scale its operations, manage growing data volumes, and comply with industry standards while maintaining economic viability.

"Thanks to Miria, we completely eliminated Data I/O or media ingest fees for our clients. This means we've removed a budget item that most other post facilities still charge for. Additionally, our deliverable prices are among the most competitive in the market due to the automations we've implemented with Miria to streamline deliveries to our partners. This all translates to cost savings for our customers."

Tanner Alvarez, Co-Founder and Head of Post

Benefits Realized:

• Efficiency: Automating archiving and enhanced management processes streamlined workflows and lowered operational expenses. This allowed for better resource allocation, enabling the company to transfer savings to customers and reinforce its competitive edge.
• Cost Savings: Because of Miria, they could eliminate charging clients Data I/O or media ingest fees, cutting an entire budget item that most other post facilities charge. Their deliverable prices are also more competitive due to Miria automation, which allows them to streamline deliveries.
• Security and Compliance: With robust security features, Atempo Miria ensured data protection and compliance with relevant regulations, safeguarding client information.
• Scalability: Atempo Miria's scalable architecture equipped General Assembly to accommodate increasing data loads as project volumes grew, ensuring that the solution could adapt to evolving demands.
• Accessibility: The solution facilitated quicker data access, enabling the team to retrieve essential files without delays.

Conclusion:

Atempo Miria successfully addressed General Assembly's initial challenges and empowered the company to expand operations, manage rising data volumes, and adhere to industry standards. The adoption of Miria significantly transformed operations, providing the reliability, efficiency, and cost savings necessary to thrive in a competitive landscape while closely aligning with the company's mission and operational objectives.

Find out more about General Assembly

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

For more about how Miria transformed operations for General Assembly, listen to our podcast episode with Tanner Alvarez, Head of Post and Co-Founder, General Assembly, Kevin Frand, Solutions Architect at Atempo Partner, Alt Systems and Atempo's John Diel. 

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