The logical folder system provides centralized access to and management of data. An abstracted file system facilitates the ease of navigation over the data system as a whole. Creating an abstracted file system is not overly difficult. In fact, most of the large visual effects companies have been abstracting their file systems since the mid-1990s. File system abstraction is a fine starting point but only begins to address the complexity of managing large volumes of file based data. If the underlying data is not well organized, the value of central access is vastly diminished. DataFrameworks’ solution provides both an abstracted file system and a means to manage the data contained within the abstracted file system.

The logical folder system provides a template-based scheme for organization, coordination, and enforcement of folder organization and naming conventions. Users are restricted to creating new folders that follow the template, forcing a business-centric hierarchy and dramatically simplifying management and navigation of the file system. Templates provide the ability to incorporate business logic, workflows, budgets and policies directly into the underlying file systems. Templates can be easily designed by empowered business users and reused across the enterprise to promote consistency in similar projects or organizations.

Consistent, predictable, and repeatable organization of data provides the required foundation for automation of file-based workflows. Organization is introduced into the file system at the time of data creation, enabling the file system itself to provide a degree of structure, greatly reducing the typical problems associated with managing unstructured data.