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Think you've got IT challenges? Kevin Clark manages a data center that's constantly being pushed to its performance limits by the most demanding of users: namely, the artists and special-effects developers at Lucasfilm Ltd., George Lucas' internationally renowned production company and home to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, among other hot properties.
Clark, Lucasfilm's director of IT operations, was the final keynote speaker at the LinuxWorld/Next Generation Data Center show in San Francisco last month. He gave attendees a virtual tour of the data center that supports Lucasfilm and its multiple divisions, including the legendary Industrial Light and Magic special effects shop, LucasArts (video games), Lucasfilm animation and Lucas Licensing.
Along the way, Clark treated attendees to lots of what he called "eye candy," including a preview of the video game "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed," the recently released animated film "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," and its upcoming companion TV series, and a short film that debuted at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics show in Los Angeles last month. Other clips showed off the special effects Lucasfilm created for the recent "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" movies.
But the real value for the audience was Clark's nuts-and-bolts description of the sophisticated IT system that supports Lucasfilm's operations. The company recently consolidated its IT operations within its Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco's Presidio, where Lucasfilm moved many of its operations in 2005. The state-of-the-art data center supports production activities at the Presidio facility, as well as at the Skywalker Ranch and the Big Rock Ranch facilities in Marin County, and an animation facility in Singapore.
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