At what point do you split the farm?

Deadline
1

Hi guys,

Having increased our render capacity at one facility almost tenfold in the last five or six months, I feel like we’re close to the limit of what our setup can manage.

While this is probably one of those “how long is a piece of string” type questions, wondering what is considered the upper limit for how many machines can realistically be expected to run from a single repository, and whether we should be starting to thing about adding another setup in parallel?

Simon

2

Hi Simon,

What is your current node count at? That’s definitely a factor. The answer to your question really depends on your current infrastructure. We’ve seen 500 nodes rendering happily from one repository, but the server and the network need to be able to handle that load. We have a whitepaper that can help take the guesswork out of this sort of thing:
thinkboxsoftware.com/deadlin … caling.pdf

Cheers,

  • Ryan
3

We are not far off 500, certainly over 450 by the time people put workstations on at night.

I know the IT guys just added four ports to the server, so we are hoping that will help!

I will check out the whitepaper.

Thanks as always for the fast response to my often dumb questions!

Simon

4

whups! thats the old whitepaper. i’ll update the site - but in the interim - i’ll send you the new one via email

cb

5

Chris,
Could you do a twitter/blog entry when the latest PDF is available online?
Thanks,
M