Centralized and distributed build environments

Producing games is an expensive, risky, time consuming endeavor. Increasing build environment performance by 1-3 percent can determine whether or not a game is profitable. IBM has bundled a combination of servers, networks, storage and software tools to create a software production environment, or build farm, that can improve software production more than 40 percent. Besides the enormous leap forward in production improvements, IBM can further tune and optimize your software production infrastructures — again, minimizing risk and cost.

Support your development team
Centralized and distributed build environments from IBM can help you speed development of high-quality games by allowing you to:

• Run builds faster and more often, compiling source code, 3D models of game elements, sound effects and music from your existing tools.
• Give developers controlled, self-service access to production build processes from within their integrated development environment (IDE), allowing them to run their own builds before they check in to source control.
• If the code works, they can do a full test against production systems on their own.
• If there’s an error, they receive immediate notification, so they can fix the problem right away.
• Allow developers to use the tools they already have in place, virtually eliminating the need to learn new applications.
• Standardize and automate repetitive tasks to help speed development cycles and limit manual processes.
• Support geographically distributed development teams through a centralized Web interface that is accessible virtually anytime, anywhere.
• Collect critical release information within a complete development log for better traceability and accurate team handoffs.

Developer improves competitive edge
In the high-demand, rapidly expanding video game industry, one leading game developer faced increased competition from low-cost game developers as well as larger companies. To improve operational efficiency, and lower IT costs and management expenses so it could remain competitive, the company decided to take a phased approach to upgrading its game development infrastructure and technologies.

IBM was engaged to implement an IT infrastructure to support new game creation and shorten development cycles. The company now enjoys a powerful technology solution that fully supports the production requirements of fast and reliable game development. The new system provides industry-leading levels of computing performance at an affordable price. By deploying the flexible solution on an open, secure Linux operating environment, the company enhanced its ability to affordably support future growth.

Build efficiencies for success
By enabling your development team to work together more cohesively and efficiently, this solution can help your game company:

• Increase productivity and reduce errors by automating repetitive, manual processes.
• Improve competitive positioning by speeding development so you can get games to market and bring in revenue faster.
• Enhance game play satisfaction, which can lead to more sales and higher profitability.
• Hit milestones on time to help ensure funding is available to continue development projects.
• Meet audit and compliance mandates to avoid fines.

Leading game developer speeds development
IBM assisted one of the largest game developers in North America in deploying a state-of-the-art development and rendering infrastructure built on powerful desktop workstations and servers. The infrastructure supports industry-leading game-development applications such as Discreet, Alias and Softimage.

The company deployed one IBM System x346 server and one IBM System x336 server running the Microsoft Windows Professional operating system and Discreet Logic software. The servers attach to the company's SAN. The server and storage solutions, in conjunction with the Discreet Logic software, allow game developers, animators and artists to more efficiently build and render video games. Rendering is run on the IBM System x servers, which seamlessly connect to numerous developers, images and animation. The full process gives video games a life-like, dynamic look and feel.

IBM Business Partner Pipelinefx
Pipelinefx provides tools for queuing and process control, is OS agnostic, has APIs for common languages allowing easy integration into any digital media production pipeline, is scalable to server farms of any size.