SGI
Altix for seismic applications at Total
Posted: 30 April 2004
Silicon Graphics sold a second 256-processor SGI Altix 3700 supercluster,
a 40-processor SGI Altix 3700 system, a 64-processor SGI Altix 350
cluster, and a four-processor SGI Altix 350 system, to the Exploration
and Production branch at Total, the major French oil and gas company.
Delivered in December 2003 at Total's technical center in Pau,
France, the 256-processor and 40-processor SGI Altix systems are
designed to help Total's 44 exploration and production subsidiaries
identify and develop onshore and offshore oil and gas prospects.
Seismic analysis applications, which generate a digital image of
the subsurface structure of the prospect or field under evaluation,
and reservoir simulation applications will be run on these configurations.
The systems, comprising respectively 256 Intel Itanium 2 processors
at 1.3 GHz, with 2 terabytes of memory, and 40 Intel Itanium 2 processors
at 1.3 GHz, with 120 GB of memory, will provide Total with additional
processing power of 1.5 TFLOPS.
These new machines will allow Total to reduce processing times,
thereby optimizing decisions concerning drilling or the acquisition
of assets within new areas.
The system will complement the company's already existing SGI infrastructure
and will be integrated into its storage area network environment,
which is based on the SGI InfiniteStorage Shared Filesystem CXFS.
Total's Arnaud Althabegoity, head of scientific information systems,
said, "We have chosen to continue to work with SGI, one of
our closest business partners since 1998, because the new Altix
3700 supercluster is confirmed to be the most suitable to run our
applications."
To be installed at Total E&P USA Inc. in Houston, the SGI Altix
350 64-processor cluster is designed to help Total's geophysical
research group to develop and industrialize new seismic processing
algorithms.
Total's Henri Calandra, head of geophysical research group, said,
"We have chosen to work with the new Altix 350 system because
we have access to a cost-effective cluster of SMP. We can now combine
both explicit data parallelism and shared Memory parallelism which
allow our applications to achieve the best performances and to be
scalable."
A four-processor SGI Altix 350 system will be used in addition
to the 40-processor Altix to run reservoir simulation applications.
SGI Technology Solutions provided the integrated services and support
to deliver a complete end-to-end solution for Total. By integrating
hardware, software, services, consulting, training and support,
SGI Technology Solutions helps customers achieve their goals and
optimize their investment in SGI products.
Silicon Graphics: The Source of Innovation and Discovery
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's
leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage.
SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant
scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether
it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently,
studying global climate or enabling the transition from analog to
digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class
of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With
offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View,
Calif.
For more information see www.sgi.com
About Total
Total, one of the major oil and gas companies in the world, is involved
in every aspect of the petroleum supply chain, including exploration
and production of oil and gas, downstream gas, trading, transport,
refining and distribution. A major player in chemicals, the group
employs more than 121,000 staff members across five continents.
For more information see www.total.com
Posted by Richard Price,
Editor Pipeline Magazine
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