Wallace and Gromit Creators’ Aardman Animations recently worked with Network Instruments and Open Reality to deploy technology for proactive problem resolution and efficient monitoring across its extended LAN. We spoke to Aardman’s Head of IT; Howard Arnault Ham about working within such a creative environment…

What does your job at Aardman entail?

I have responsibility for the core 1st and 2nd line IT technical support teams, IT budgets and working with the business to define key IT strategies to take it forward. This is all aimed at delivering cost effective, proactively managed and innovative systems to allow the business to do what it does best, as efficiently as possible.

What was the reason behind the network management solution project and how did the implementation go?

One of the things that I identified at Aardman was the lack of any ability to see what was happening on the inter-site network links; we were seeing a few problems that related to network load and network-related issues that were extremely difficult to diagnose and isolate.

We also needed to gain an understanding of bandwidth usages to consider requirements for a new inter-site link and anticipated data capacity increases due to the growth of hi-def digital media and a number of new projects in our pipelines.

The implementation went without a hitch, with Open Reality/Network Instruments’ technical engagement and my network specialists making this a very straightforward and quick operation.

What’s next for Aardman, IT-wise?

Our main challenges for the future are to firstly try to establish NAS/SAN cross site technologies. This is to consolidate and secure our ever growing digital storage requirements, with document management strategies to reduce the impact of paper in our business, whilst at the same time trying to achieve in ways that will have least environmental impact.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Well, I’m a senior instructor and practicing 2nd Dan Shotokan Karate black belt for the Southern Shotokan Karate association.

I also enjoy motorcycles and motorcycle mechanics, with a preference for basic big twins; I ride a Harley Davidson 1200 and am currently re-building a Norton Commando 850. I attend a number of classic bike camps throughout the year with my son in tow.