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Fashion Retailer Streamlining Creative Production with Adobe and Frame.io
Company Situation
The company operates within the fashion retail industry, managing creative production and marketing initiatives across multiple channels. Their team includes production managers, creative directors, IT operations, and marketing leadership, with a creative team of roughly 10 to 15 active users. The volume of digital assets is significant, with a total of approximately 75 terabytes stored on-premises, growing by an estimated 8 to 10 terabytes annually due to seasonal product launches and increasing video content.
Existing Workflow
Currently, the company relies on an on-premise physical server to store and manage all creative assets. The creative teams use the entire Adobe suite, along with photography software, Figma for design collaboration, and Microsoft applications. For asset delivery to ecommerce platforms, they utilize Cloudinary as their content delivery network (CDN). File review and approval workflows involve tools like Frame.io. All storage and file management operations are centralized on the local server, creating a single point of access for all users.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
The company faces several critical bottlenecks and challenges with the current setup:
Only one user can work on a file at a time, limiting simultaneous collaboration and slowing down creative processes.
Frequent file corruption and long upload/download times hinder efficiency and frustrate users.
Remote work is challenging due to reliance on on-prem storage, impacting productivity especially for offsite team members.
The server uses AFP (Apple Filing Protocol), which is being deprecated by Apple in future OS releases, threatening continuity of key features such as file preview and tagging.
The growing volume of video content and creative outputs demands more scalable and flexible storage solutions.
The IT team has not previously pursued cloud migration due to concerns about cost and data volume, but evolving business needs and technology changes have made cloud adoption a strategic priority.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade offers a cloud-based server solution designed to replace the existing on-prem infrastructure, enabling the creative and marketing teams to collaborate more efficiently. Key improvements include:
- Enabling multiple users to work on files simultaneously without file corruption risks, dramatically improving workflow speed.
- Providing seamless remote access to assets, supporting flexible work arrangements and enhancing productivity.
- Future-proofing the environment by eliminating dependence on legacy protocols like AFP, ensuring compatibility with modern operating systems.
- Managing high volumes of data more cost-effectively by differentiating between active data (approximately 10 TB annually) and archival storage (40-50 TB), optimizing storage costs.
- Integrating smoothly with current creative tools such as Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Frame.io, and Cloudinary, preserving existing workflows while enhancing performance.
Benefits
- Increased collaboration efficiency with simultaneous multi-user file access
- Reduced file corruption and improved data integrity
- Faster file transfer speeds and reduced downtime
- Enhanced remote work capabilities for creative teams
- Scalable and cost-effective storage management aligned with active vs. archival needs
- Future-proof infrastructure compatible with evolving OS requirements
- Streamlined integration with existing creative and delivery tools
Technologies Used
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