Sherpa - Cloud infrastructure made simple

Meet Sherpa

Managed cloud infrastructure and workflows simplified, brought to you by Escape Technology

Get your studio up and running in 45 minutes

Sherpa allows creative studios and content providers to create, collaborate and scale fast in the cloud. Spin up a fully functioning facility in under 45 minutes using Sherpa’s easy to use GUI.

Sherpa is a secure, vendor agnostic environment where you can recreate any VFX, animation, games, architecture visualization or post production pipeline. Already have an existing pipeline and want to leverage the power of the cloud? Our team of in-house experts can help you to hybridise, or customize to meet your needs.

Sherpa Success Stories

From boutique animation studios to one of the largest office space brands in the world our Sherpa solution has helped businesses of all shapes and sizes scale up their studio capability in the cloud.

View our case studies and find out just how transformational Sherpa can be.

Selected Works

Watch our interview with Selected Works founders Sean and Greg and see how instrumental Sherpa was to growing their new studio and landing that knock out punch.

WeWork

Read how Sherpa gave WeWork the ability for worldwide teams to work together seamlessly.

Sliced Bread

Discover how through Sherpa, Escape Technology were able to give Sliced Bread a scalable render farm in the cloud on a per project basis.

Ritzy

Find out how Sherpa allowed Ritzy Animations to grow a full animation studio in the cloud, and deliver two series of Obki - their first commissioned series and one very close to their hearts.

Freelancer to Large Studio - we’ve got you covered

Sherpa is ideal for teams, regardless of size, and is simple to use

Freelancer

Whether you’re freelancing for a larger business or working on your own projects, the time will come where your needs outstrip what your technology can provide. Collaboration and accessibility are always the key challenges.

Packages like Maya, Cinema 4D, Nuke, and After Effects are all familiar to you, and you probably use at least one of them in your day to day. You might have some local storage but probably aren’t using a render farm just yet.

With Sherpa, freelance artists are able to use cloud-based rendering solutions without the risks of ‘fire and forget’ services. The render farm you spin up is yours and no one else's.

If you need a workstation that’s accessible from wherever you are then it’s as easy as the push of a button. Need eight GPUs? No problem. Working with a small team of collaborators? Give them access to your working files in a AAA secure environment.

And if you need a workstation that exceeds the performance of your own system you can easily spec it out and use it for exactly as long as you need, allowing you to pitch for jobs that would normally be out of reach.

And if you choose to grow your business, Sherpa can scale along with you.

Small Business

Central storage, render farms, and on-site workstations are all integral to a small creative studio delivering CGI projects. From animated videos to full VFX sequences in feature films, there’s a huge burden on your technology.

Whether you’re two people or two hundred, scalable infrastructure is key to your success - and for it to be entirely familiar is a massive bonus. By using Sherpa small businesses around the world are able to grow elastically as their workload demands.

Maybe your team is expanding, or you could be bringing on temporary freelancers. Perhaps you need additional render power to complete a current project. By using Sherpa from Escape Technology small creative studios can compete on a wider stage. Spin up workstations, render, and storage to match your needs and spin them down again when you’re done.

Sherpa enables you to manage your costs and your resources without the challenges of capital expenditure.

Large Studio

Scaling a large business often requires a significant outlay of resources. From physical space to workstations and software licences. Balancing your CapEx and OpEx costs is an ongoing challenge, and you’re often bound by local recruitment.

By leveraging the power of the cloud businesses are able to benefit from a global pool of talent. Sherpa is able to give you the ability to onboard and work with artists and creatives all over the world, as well as locally.

Expand your existing infrastructure with top of the range new workstations, render, and storage without affecting your physical footprint. Keep your servers off site for an efficient, clean and secure workflow; while maintaining complete control over your pipeline from end to end.

Sherpa delivers a scalable, fully owned, cloud-based solution that enables your engineers to deliver a best in class service to your creative teams.

Born in the Cloud Facilities

For new businesses, teams, or projects the cloud offers a simple, scalable solution to technology resourcing. By using a ‘Born in the Cloud’ approach to equipping a studio Sherpa is able to maximise cost effectiveness without compromising on capability.

Sherpa from Escape Technology is a cloud aggregation tool developed by engineers with decades of experience in visual effects and content delivery. It uses a unique approach that enables users to operate a fully functioning cloud-based pipeline: workstations, storage, and render. What makes it unique is its ability to operate in the same way that onsite infrastructure does; giving you total control over what software you install and how you work.

All you need is an internet connection, monitors, and a zero client (for example, Teradici) and you can get up and running in no time. No costly machine rooms, no noisy workstations, simply push pixels from the cloud to your artists and back up again.

Benefits of Sherpa

Teams of any size can benefit from using Sherpa to manage and run their cloud based resources.

Control Costs

Benefit from cost control features that help avoid unnecessary expenditure. Costs are monitored per hour with billing on a weekly basis.

Global

Work with people anywhere in the world to build your perfect team without worrying about time zones or office space.

Monitoring

Resources can be easily monitored to help spot bottle-necks or areas that have been over-resourced and can be right-sized to save costs.

Security

Access to remote workstations is managed via the Sherpa GUI using a secure and tightly controlled invitation process.

Familiar

Sherpa doesn’t impose any particular workflow. Simply bring your existing process directly to the Sherpa environment.

Mobile

Access your workstation, storage, and render nodes from anywhere in the world by logging in from a thin-client, laptop or tablet.

Scalable

Use the elasticity of the cloud to scale your pipeline, increasing your resources when there’s more work and reducing them as needed.

Simple

Sherpa removes the complexity typically associated with using the cloud, enabling you to build a fully functional facility in under 45 minutes.

Pricing

Workstations

^from£45_week

Storage

^from£35_week

Render

^from£50_week

Prices above include:

Licensing of OS and remote access software.
Standard support hours of 9am to 6pm UK time.
The above prices are correct at the time of printing and do not contain any egress bandwidth charges. More up to date pricing is reflected in the Sherpa GUI.
These prices can be reviewed before committing to building resources. Total resource charges are dependent on a variety of factors.

Learn More

Using the cloud is the most effective way of getting the compute resources you need on demand. But the practicalities of deploying the cloud in your pipeline can be complex at best. Sherpa, a new tool from Escape Technology, is about to revolutionise the way you studios create visual effects in the cloud.

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Get in touch

Get in touch with one of our cloud specialists to find out how Sherpa can work for you.

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