Sideshow Collectibles Simplifies Management of Their Local and Remote Digital Assets with Synology

	About Customer
	Company Name: Sideshow Collectibles	Model Used: RS408 RS409+ RX4
	Why Sideshow Collectibles chose Synology DiskStations Cross Platform Sharing Easy Remote Access Excellent Technical Support
"In a word: Easy. Setup and management of the servers is intuitive. Performance is solid. This is just an easy server to use."

The Company

In 1995, Sideshow Collectibles embarked on a mission of connecting people with their favorite icons from the worlds of film and television. Over the past 15 years, this plan to celebrate Pop Culture matured into a uniquely successful endeavor – one sustained by a passionate worldwide community that is committed to the art and lifestyle of collecting.

Sideshow is a truly multi-cultural mix of artists, administrators, and geeks who spend an arguably unhealthy amount of time immersed in the realms of our multiple pop culture licenses and proprietary properties. Because they have the same passion for quality and authenticity as our collectors, they’ve forged collaborative relationships with filmmakers and special effect houses including Guillermo del Toro, Stan Winston Studio, Legacy Effects, Spectral Motion, Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. and KNB Effects. The combined effort of these freaks, geeks and artistic savants is an award-winning family of collectibles, including limited edition statues, replicas and 1/6th scale figures.

The Challenge

Sideshow Collectibles needed to add more storage to their network to manage their assets. They tried several storage solutions, but these came out wanting; some simply failed to perform, some failed in technical support.

"The first challenge was finding the right sales/support engineer; one that was able to answer my questions without rushing the conversationor pushing their product too strongly" said the VP of Information Technology. "Synology worked with us." In addition to the file sharing needs frequently found in running a business, Sideshow Collectibles also works with many remote artists. They needed an easy method to not only share files within their network, but to allow secure remote access for their remote users- enforcing privacy.

The Solution

They researched network attached storage and found Synology. The five RackStations they have deployed so far have delivered as promised in performance, ease of administration, and value.

"Customer support is nothing short of amazing. I have used Synology support many times, sometimes with some very unique inquiries," he says. "It’s not just the solid knowledge of all the typical support questions and answers that makes this team so outstanding; it’s the real curveballs, the odd scenarios, that occasionally arise... The Synology support team has never given up or lost interest in resolving our most difficult circumstances."

They found that integration with their existing Active Directory environment was a snap, allowing for easy assignment of privileges within their network. The RackStations provided painless file sharing between their Mac and Windows workstations. Server backups, too, were simple to set up.

"In a word: Easy. Setup and management of the servers is intuitive. Performance is solid. Firmware upgrades have always gone smoothly. This is just an easy server to use."

In addition to their core creative teams, they often work with remote artists. They need to provide remote access and ensure privacy for these contributors. By adjusting the privileges on folders, the artists’ work remains discrete; between them and the managers. The managers can then view multiple folders from each user without having to map multiple drives.

To facilitate the transfer of images and files between Sideshow and their remote users, they have enabled File Station. File Station allows them to give out a single URL and the users can then upload and download files as necessary through a common web browser. Because File Station is browser-based, it is OS agnostic; an added benefit to their remote workers. In addition, offloading the file transfers to File Station has significantly eased the strain on their mail server.

Sideshow’s mission has not changed since their humble beginnings in a garage staffed with a handful of overambitious, under-nourished friends. Just as they have done for the last 15 years, they will continue to enjoy bringing these icons into the lives of collectors and celebrating the art of popular culture. See what irresistible pieces they have on offer at: www.sideshowcollectibles.com