Esko Automation Engine and organization of client native files on prepress server

[markb]

Hi, we are looking over Esko Automation Engine Workflow and have a question about organizing client native files. We currently all (7 staff) work out of a single folder called the Design WIP (work in progress). Every month, we move any project folder older than 30 days from the Design WIP and move to another storage unit that just holds client archives. We have an indexing application that we search to find archived jobs on the archive storage unit.

My question is, it looks like the Esko Automation Engine workflow might need the paths to our native project folders/files to stay in one place forever judging from the client application prepress would use to register there files to the system. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, would it be best to purchase a couple large storage servers and just start organizing our job by client folders and just have a single system that has scalable storage? Thanks!

 

[steve.weiss]

I currently work with AE10 and I really like what it has to offer and it greatly increases our production and organization. We have our filing set up as the following: we use a DROBO Pro with 6TB hosted by a MacPro. On that DROBO there are shares set up for every year since 2000. In the year shares there is a Customer Folder and within that folder there is an item/job folder which is what gets made into job job within AE10. We have had the system in place for 2 years now and it is really nice when it comes time to revise a file from a previous year. We use the "relocate job" ticket in AE10 and it moves the entire contents of the job into our current year share on the DROBO. I believe that it would be possible to use your current method but you would be using the "relocate job" ticket very often. If you have any more questions or would like me to explain something further just ask.

steve.weiss

 

[markb]

Thank you Steve, how is the speed of the Drobo Pro? I have been looking over Drobo and a couple other vendors and am unsure if iScsi would meet our needs for 4-5 prepess staff working on large sized projects. I think we will change our organization to how you have client job data organized. We have talked about this, but scalable storage has been what we need to change. How do you handle backups of the Drobo? Thanks, Mark

 

[steve.weiss]

We have 3 operators working off it consistently and 4-5 people pulling and putting files on it all day long. I think it runs as fast as anything out there. I looked into the new DROBO systems and they are now offering gigabit ones, so speed is not a factor. The DROBO software that it comes with offers a copy feature so currently we are backing up to an onsite DROBO FS 3 times a day and we also have another DROBO FS that is brought in monthly to be backed up to and then taken off site.

 

[markb]

Are there any limitations with using a Macintosh 10.5 or 10.6 server with AE from your experience?

 

[steve.weiss]

We are using a Dell machine with Windows Server on it for AE10. The Mac I referred to is just hosting the DROBO to the network. At the time we purchased the DROBO there were no network attached options so we had to use a computer to host it. We really like our current configuration. If you are looking into getting a new machine to act as your server make sure the thing is ripped to the gills with performance specs, which will allow for faster RIPping of nasty files!