ProMAX, the innovative provider of turnkey editorial, shared storage, and asset management solutions, has announced that Camp Creative has chosen ProMAX Platform as their shared storage solution. Camp Creative, a marketing and experiential event design agency serving clients in the Bay Area and across the U.S., had Platform installed to meet their creative needs in January of this year, and the server has been running nonstop as the facility’s replacement for its aging SAN (Storage Area Network).

Introduced in November of last year, Platform is a crucial development in the shared storage market that provides a modular approach to the changing needs of users. Modules can be added to the enterprise-class server as building blocks to support growing and changing demands, as required. With Platform, one uniquely flexible server brings together shared storage, asset management, archiving, and transcoding for the first time. 

Camp Creative implemented the ProMAX Platform with the 32TB SHARE module, which offers high-speed, expandable online backup and storage. The company’s four edit stations are connected to Platform over 10 gigabit Ethernet, and all assets and footage stored on Platform can be accessed by any edit station, facilitating speed and promoting collaboration. Two other computers are connected to Platform via 1Gb Ethernet, and more ports are available so Camp Creative can add additional computers and laptops with ease. 

“We’re a one-stop shop from concept to completion, so the solution we chose had to be flexible enough to accommodate editorial, color correction, audio and motion graphics software, including MAXON CINEMA 4D, Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, Illustrator and Photoshop,” says editor-director Adam Planas of Camp Creative. “A number of things made Platform stand out. The system was very comparable to other players in the space, but its price point worked within our budget. ProMAX was also more responsive throughout the process. We felt really comfortable working with them, and it felt like they were answering all of our questions honestly and intelligently.”

Camp Creative took advantage of ProMAX’s unique place in the market, as both a manufacturer and systems integrator, utilizing their problem-solving expertise to craft the right technical solution for them. 

“We had a good idea of the amount of storage and connection speeds we needed, but one of our edit stations is older and one is a new laptop with no Ethernet port,” Planas recalls. “We told ProMAX early on about these issues, and they were very responsive and worked with us to find the best way to organize our edit stations around the system. They had a real understanding of how we worked in our agency. It’s one thing to know your product and how it’s built, and another thing to understand the nitty-gritty of how people actually use it.”

Built with the ProMAX modular advantage, Platform currently offers three additional modules to SHARE: TRANSCODE which manages an entire facility’s transcodes in one advanced server; DAM which puts a complete asset management system into facility workflow; and ARCHIVE for direct backup and archive from Platform and automatic scheduled backups. 

Camp Creative knows they have the flexibility to expand their storage capacity and scale up with additional Platform modules as their needs require. “We needed an immediate replacement storage solution, so we moved forward with SHARE, but it’s great to know that Platform’s data management and archiving modules are available if we need them,” Planas says.

Jess Hartmann, CEO of ProMAX, comments, “Camp Creative is an outstanding agency and a great group of people to work with. We designed Platform to enable just such a company. The ProMAX modular approach allows them to expand as needed and add multiple functions to their server without buying more hardware.”

Camp Creative counts Cisco, Google, HP, Nissan, Visa and Zynga among its roster of top-tier clients. Planas concludes, “We are a creative agency, so the extra bonus for us was that Platform was also the coolest-looking solution available. It’s an aesthetically pleasing system instead of just a bunch of drives. It has not only been developed well on the software side, but on the hardware side too.”

About ProMAX Systems

With offices in Santa Ana and Burbank, California, ProMAX is the innovative provider of professional media technology solutions, specializing in the development, manufacture and integration of high-end workstations, network servers and storage devices for content creators around the world. The company has been providing expertly devised and supported end-to-end workflow solutions to the media and entertainment, enterprise, house of worship, education, and government sectors since 1994. Acquired by CEO Jess Hartmann in 2008, who is guiding the company’s expanding manufacturing operations and direct-to-end-user offerings, ProMAX remains a reliable resource for building a powerful IT infrastructure that supports the collaborative media production process. For more information, visit www.promax.com.

ProMAX will be at NAB Show 2013 in booth SL5324.