When it comes to video production, the challenge of remote work and distributed teams is getting large amounts of data to the people that need it. You can do this manually by shipping drives, connecting via a virtual private network (VPN), or sending files via third-party cloud solutions. But these are all time-consuming options.
There is another way: syncing files with Resilio Connect.
When you have a team working together in the same building, it’s easy for them to connect to shared storage like a Jellyfish and all work from a common set of media to collaborate on projects. The efficiency gained with this type of workflow is incredible. But when you distribute your team across different cities, or even countries, you lose the benefits of a common set of media and project collaboration, right? Not necessarily….
Synchronizing content extends the benefits of shared storage to a broad group of team members, regardless of their location. Here are a few of the ways you can use a syncing utility like Resilio Connect in conjunction with Jellyfish to keep your distributed team working together as one.
Multi HQ
Some production companies have post teams in multiple cities. Each geographical location can have a Jellyfish for high-performance local shared storage, allowing them to edit natively in 4K and above. Using Resilio Connect, you can sync data between multiple Jellyfish in real-time. Changes at one Jellyfish begin propagating to the other Jellyfish within seconds to keep all teams on the same page. An editor can complete an edit in New York, and the colorist in Los Angeles can begin working on those files almost immediately. Moreover, Resilio has no filesize limits, so no worries if you’re working on massive 8K media files remotely. Syncing a large batch of media isn’t instantaneous, of course, but Resilio’s underlying P2P technology accelerates transfers far more quickly than traditional file transfer protocols.
Since each Jellyfish is a powerful server, it can run the Resilio service internally without requiring that any workstations be dedicated to traffic management or configuration. The Resilio Connect Management Console is centralized (and optionally cloud-based), allowing administration to happen anywhere.
One HQ, many remote individuals
Resilio also offers a cross-platform desktop client, which means individual remote workers can install Resilio Connect on their device of choice and become a part of the syncing network.
There are two ways an individual remote user can sync content.
Auto-sync
With auto-sync, the admin initiates a sync job between a certain folder on the Jellyfish and the remote user’s workstation and local storage. These two folders will stay synchronized until the admin stops the sync.
Transparent Selective Sync
With selective sync, the admin still needs to initially create the sync job, but Resilio pushes no data to the remote user automatically. The remote user can immediately see and browse the contents of the synced folder but chooses which files they want to download. This selective sync option works best in instances when the remote user needs to search for a few files in a large folder. They might not have enough local storage for a full sync, but selective sync allows them to find what they need and download it. The amazing thing, though, is that Resilio syncs any changes made by remote users back to the Jellyfish.
Cloud Object Storage Sync
Another element that Resilio allows you to add to a sync job is cloud object storage. AWS, Azure, Google, Wasabi, and other cloud providers can be added to any sync job, making a near-real time cloud backup. If you add a cloud object sync to the Multi HQ model described above, you can handle both collaboration and cloud backup with one process.
This may sound incredibly complex, but setting up and managing sync jobs is actually quite easy. Resilio’s cloud-based control panel allows the admin to create sync jobs based on what is desired. Sync jobs can be the entire Jellyfish, certain shares, folders, etc. Just enter the desired parameters and start the sync job.
Resilio provides a great way to keep your whole team connected and working efficiently no matter where they are located.
[Header image by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels]
