"The results were immediate and tangible: performance improved significantly, allowing us to manage even very large video files without any issues. This is a strategic investment that makes our infrastructure truly future-proof."
- Services to the company
- Case Study
Locarno Film Festival
ABOUT
Founded in 1946, the Locarno Film Festival is one of the world’s most important and longest-running film festivals. Created as a space for artistic renewal and freedom, it has always showcased bold, independent and innovative works, giving a voice to both emerging and established filmmakers.
Every summer, for 11 days, the city of Locarno transforms into a vibrant cultural hub, attracting film professionals, students and enthusiasts in an atmosphere of openness, sharing and accessibility. With competitive sections, retrospectives, dedicated spaces for short films and experimental cinema, and prestigious awards such as the Golden Leopard (Pardo d’Oro), the Festival promotes quality, independence and the cultural value of cinema every year, helping to shape new talent and define the future of the film industry.
Challenge
The Festival produces and receives a large volume of multimedia content: videos, trailers, interviews, photographs and promotional materials. All of this consists of unstructured data that must be stored, protected and made quickly and efficiently accessible.
“The goal, simple to describe but complex to achieve, was to consolidate our vast volumes of data into a single enterprise-grade platform capable of guaranteeing the performance, protection and scalability required to support the Festival’s growth,” explains Alessio Vairetti, Head of the Festival’s IT Department.
Before the intervention, this content was distributed across low-end NAS systems, which did not provide the performance, reliability or flexibility required by such a dynamic, quality-driven organization. “We were looking for a strategy capable of channeling data into a single enterprise-class platform, able to guarantee high performance, advanced protection and uncompromising scalability,” Vairetti concludes.
This configuration presented several critical issues: data was fragmented across multiple systems, increasing operational complexity and slowing down production workflows; performance was limited, making it difficult to manage large video files; hardware reliability was insufficient, creating real risks of downtime or data loss. In addition, scalability was poor, preventing data growth from being supported without redesigning the entire infrastructure.
Solution
To address the needs of the Locarno Film Festival, 4IT Solutions structured the project in two main phases, with the objective of building a solid, scalable infrastructure capable of protecting the organization’s critical data.
“Our long-standing partnership with 4IT Solutions was the foundation that allowed us to take on this challenge,” says the Head of IT.
The first phase involved the introduction of Dell PowerScale, an enterprise-grade NAS storage solution designed to deliver high performance and maximum scalability. Four nodes of 120 TB each were installed, providing an initial usable capacity of approximately 300 TB. Thanks to its flexible architecture, PowerScale enables gradual expansion of storage, both in terms of capacity—by adding storage nodes—and performance, by integrating compute nodes, while maintaining a single access point that is easy to manage and highly performant.
In addition to seamless scalability, PowerScale offers simplified management: data is consolidated into a single file system that can grow to petabyte scale, eliminating the fragmentation typical of traditional NAS environments. This is combined with enterprise-level reliability, advanced technical support and an infrastructure designed to ensure operational continuity and resilience.
The second phase of the project addressed the critical issue of data security and protection through the implementation of Superna Ransomware Defender within the PowerScale ecosystem.
“This solution allowed us to significantly raise the level of security and protection of our data, which had previously been a very critical area,” comments Vairetti.
The solution enables continuous monitoring of suspicious behavior on the file system and, when signs consistent with a ransomware attack are detected, it can promptly identify the anomaly, block access and trigger recovery workflows, minimizing the impact on operations. During this phase as well, 4IT Solutions played an active role in integrating and fine-tuning security policies, ensuring alignment with the Festival’s operational and business needs, as well as consistency with existing backup and retention processes on PowerScale.
The integration of PowerScale and Superna Ransomware Defender has enabled the Locarno Film Festival to significantly strengthen its data security posture, delivering a centralized, resilient and secure platform capable of supporting the Festival’s growth and innovation in the years to come.
Results
The adoption of the new infrastructure delivered positive and tangible results from the very beginning, improving content management and laying solid foundations for sustainable long-term growth.
“The results were concrete and immediately noticeable […] Performance has improved dramatically, allowing us to manage even large video files without any issues. Finally, we achieved proactive and comprehensive protection of our content through continuous monitoring. This is an investment that makes our infrastructure future-proof,” notes Alessio Vairetti, summarizing the impact on daily operations, security and scalability.
Among the key results achieved:
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Centralized data: all multimedia content is now collected within a single, scalable and easily manageable NAS environment. This has simplified daily operations and reduced the complexity of the previous system.
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Improved performance: file access is now faster and more efficient, even with large volumes of data. The platform also allows performance to be further enhanced simply by adding new compute nodes.
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Proactive protection: continuous monitoring and integration with anti-ransomware systems provide an advanced level of security. Automatic cloud backup ensures content protection even in the event of unforeseen incidents.
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Future-proof investment: the selected solution is designed to evolve alongside the organization, allowing capacity and performance expansion without the need to overhaul the existing infrastructure.
The success of the project confirms the value of the consulting support provided by 4IT Solutions, which worked alongside the Locarno Film Festival using a method closely aligned with the client’s needs.
“The 4IT team proved not only highly competent, but also proactive and always available,” emphasizes Alessio Vairetti, highlighting how “the consultative approach, focused on listening and tailoring the solution,” ensured “a smooth and efficient transition from the old architecture to the new one.” He adds: “I wouldn’t call it a surprise, but rather an effectiveness that clearly exceeded our expectations. The implementation of Superna Ransomware Defender made the entire infrastructure not only high-performing, but also resilient and secure.”
The perceived value is also linked to continuous oversight: “Knowing that our data is constantly monitored and protected is an invaluable asset for the Festival’s operational continuity.”
Words that clearly reflect the outcome of the joint effort.
“We recommend 4IT Solutions to any organization, especially those that, like us, have a small IT department and are looking for a reliable and highly competent partner.”
A judgment that reflects a way of working based on listening, customization and long-term technological choices—capable not only of addressing immediate needs, but also of laying solid foundations for future growth.
*Case study relating to a project carried out by 4IT Solutions prior to the integration with Var Group Suisse.