The Company Behind Shonen Jump and Other Popular Manga – Upgrades to True Data Freedom With TrueNAS

Introduction

Viz Media has been an internationally recognized authority on Manga for over three decades. The California-based company is involved in numerous industries, from publishing and animation to film and gaming. You likely recognize some of Viz Media’s projects including Naruto or Pokemon. Yep, Viz Media is the producer of these exciting franchises. Much of Viz Media’s work is available on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Pluto, Tubi, and others.

The Storage Challenge

Serving multiple customers, especially in the video and publishing industry, means that Viz Media needs a reliable and scalable storage solution to serve its geographically dispersed clientele for whom it processes data-intensive video footage and delivers 20 to 40 graphic novels monthly. The company also needs to manage its websites and network of ~200 hybrid employees, whose workflow includes applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Indesign, and Premier. Overall, Viz Media needs to easily connect and transfer files not only with its clients but between its team members across the globe. 

Requirements

• Enhanced performance and mobility to migrate, sync, and archive data while delivering noticeably faster file access and sharing worldwide.
• Flexibility to adapt and change with minimal strain to scale capacity to meet today’s requirement while providing for future growth.
• Choice to leverage the right platform and technologies that best meets the need.
• Solid reliability that ensures data accessibility for all participating studios, publications and team members regardless of time or location.

TrueNAS Benefits

• Data Mobility that delivers high-performance file access and sharing on a worldwide basis.
• Flexibility to support a variety of applications, including virtualization.
• Choice to leverage the right platform and technologies that best meets the needs while seamlessly integrating with existing IT infrastructure.
• Access to industry-leading 24/7 support.
• In other words, True Data Freedom.

TRUENAS ADVANTAGES

The choice of a do-it-yourself or turnkey solution is one of TrueNAS’ unique strengths. Given its past experience with TrueNAS Open Source, Viz Media’s decision came down to which choice best fit its need. After considering all the options, the company knew a turnkey approach was the way to go. This solution, TrueNAS Enterprise, eliminated much of the integration challenge organizations face when deploying new gear but leveraged IT’s existing TrueNAS skill sets. Reflecting on the decision, Scott Call, the Director of IT, is confident it was the right choice.

Viz Media decided on the TrueNAS Enterprise M50-HA, with 535 TB of usable capacity. With the ability to easily scale capacity for future growth through TrueNAS and work with other servers running Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows, the M50 delivers all the advantages Viz Media needed for its workflows. With TrueNAS Enterprise, Viz Media enjoys the mobility, choice, and flexibility that True Data Freedom offers.

“It’s been nice to take the TrueNAS software we knew and were proficient with and add in both support on the hardware and software level; it has made sure we don’t have anything to complain about.”

Results

Scott reports “a noticeable improvement in accessing large files and moving them around” while in the office. Overall, on a scale of one to five, Scott rated Viz Media’s experience with TrueNAS as a solid five. Though Viz Media had prior experience with ZFS, the team utilized the knowledgeable TrueNAS Enterprise support resources throughout implementation for any guidance needed and to have peace of mind throughout the process.