Breaking down technology barriers in Adco
Posted: 11 December 2006
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New ground is being broken with the installation of the largest and fastest single image computer in the Middle East at the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Cooperation (Adco).
Designed and delivered by SGI and UAE based Emirates Computers, the SGI Altix 4700 solution features a revolutionary shared memory technology and promises to offer unique benefits in the field of reservoir simulation.
A long and arduous evaluation process spearheaded by Adco˙s Petroleum Development Division IS/IT team recognized the unique technical and support benefits of the selected solution.
The system is composed of 384 processor cores, 768 GB dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs) and has 10.8 TB of storage capacity. The super cluster utilizes the all new Dual Core Intel Itanium Montecito.
Adco will eventually have several field teams working on the system, inputting datasets for oil reservoirs to run compositional simulations using Schlumberger ´Eclipseˇ or other simulation applications.
These important simulations can take days to complete and are the basis for full-field development planning. Initial tests show the speed to be four times faster than when run on the previous hardware.
In mid October SGI announced a new lean line of products that like the Altix are all open and based on non proprietary technology. Their philosophy is to deliver a complete range of high-performance server and storage solutions to enable its˙ customers to overcome the challenges of data-intensive workflows and accelerate breakthrough discoveries, innovation and information transformation.
Altix, Masoud Al-Mughairy, Team Leader (IS/IT) at Adco said: ´Judging on the ratio of price versus performance, no other vendors were able to compete with the SGI figures. We were also attracted by the long history of SGI in technical computing, and the revolutionary technology that was being proposed. Taken as a package our desire for the solution was strong especially when this was backed with solid service standards and warranty conditions from the local supplier.ˇ
Tony Abou Jawad, manager of technical computing, Emirates Computers added: ´Emirates computers have been actively servicing the UAE oil and gas industry since 1978 and see this project as a major milestone. You might have thought providing the biggest single image Super Computer in the Middle East was challenging, however SGI and Emirates Computers engineers managed to get the machine operational in less than 48 hours. This makes providing ADCO with this end result all the more satisfying.ˇ |
