Server- Workstation and the rest

[MICHELMANN_ARCHITEKT]

Hi,

I am having a discussion with our network admin. He is worried about the traffic in the network and of the storage usage with V-Ray.
So we are trying to find a good solution for 4 workplaces and a couple render drones.

My first idea is, to get four machines with a dual processor 10-core and 64-128gb ram, 780 gtx 6gb + two of those without a good graphic card (+ maybe some existing machines) purely for rendering . Data is on a server for the whole office (around 20 people). This setup cost around 25k-30k €
That should work for 2-3 years if the workload stays the same.

His solution is, to have a rack with similarly build servers + dedicated storage. We would then use Pcoip to connect to those servers. He likes this because most of the traffic would stay with the servers in the same rack. He thinks, he can get that for around 5-10k less.

The classical solution... Workstation + drones in a server rack, he did not like that to much, because he thinks the traffic gets to much when distributed rendering.

My questions:

1. Has anybody used Pcoip with Max and V-Ray?

2. Does V-Ray work on a virtual machine? And do I lose performance? Is the setup easier with a virtual machine (using plugins... licences)?

3. How much traffic does V-Ray produce?

4. What would be an ideal storage solution for V-Ray?

5. What would be the perfect setup for Max + V-Ray?

Thx for your help.

Bye,

Jan

[REDVERTEX]

Hi Jan,

I feel you don't have to worry on vray network traffic. Of course it depends of the file sizes. I will share some of our experience.

Our work flow is based on 1 single main server, 60 workstations and 30 dedicated render nodes. All connected to a main switch with 1gb LAN . The main switch has truncked 2 ports to a 2gb connection to the main server.
The main server keeps the storage , runs vray licenses and runs backburner . Storage is based on RAID 5. Secure and cost effective. Server has dual port intel LAN card that is connected to the switch as said before with 2gb connection.

I may say it all runs well and was build as a cost effective solution.
You're welcome if you need some more information.
Regards,
Dimitar

[davexl]

2. Does V-Ray work on a virtual machine? And do I lose performance? Is the setup easier with a virtual machine (using plugins... licences)?

The first setup can be a nightmare, the cloning of installations can be a lot easier, but there are a some big disadvantages.

* RAM and CPU core limits - many virtualization solutions often have a limit. Or if they do not they are expensive.
* Extra layer of complexity - in networking. Backburner is a nightmare already.
* Performance hit. Assume at least 10%, often much worse if badly configured. The host OS etc takes a bit of RAM, and you do not want to get close to paging.

And forget about running a VRAY virtualised render in the background while someone is trying to use that machine for anything else. Only use virtualisation if there is no other way.

[MICHELMANN_ARCHITEKT]

Hi Dimitar,

I think your setup is the way most offices do it. How do you keep your workstations updated? Davexl, you mentioned cloning... does it work well?

For me four high-end machines plus a server would be enough. But this solution seems to be a nightmare for our admin. He really likes virtual machines.

Does anyone have some concrete data on the performance loss when using vray on a virtual machine? (virtual machines would only run vray)

And is there data on the network traffic produced by V-Ray?


Still what is an ideal setup for a small office, when money is not the first priority?
I am really interested in a server with PcoIP that has everything in one rack and the workplaces have a dualmonitor setup and the thin-clients - a noise free work environment.

Thx for the answers.

[AlexP]

Worth thinking about whether you really need to be connected to the rest of the office network?
At my old place we had a separate network for all the 3D visualisers to alleviate exactly this sort of stuff. There was some overlap somewhere in the setup in the form of a shared drive so we could share assets with non-visualisers.
But otherwise all the rendering hardware and storage was on a separate hub altogether.