Petroleum Giant Scales Out With Dell for Standards-Based Supercomputing Capabilities.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 2003 Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco, the state-owned national oil company of Saudi Arabia, is the largest oil corporation in the world and the world's largest in terms of proven crude oil reserves and production. Deploys Dell's Largest High-Performance Cluster Solution in Europe, Middle East and Africa Dell (Nasdaq:DELL) has installed its largest high performance computing cluster in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) Refers to that region of the world. For example, one might see products packaged differently for the UK, EMEA and Asia Pacific markets. ) to date, at Saudi Aramco, the world's leading oil producer/exporter and a top producer of natural gas, to provide standards based high-performance computing High-speed computing, which typically refers to supercomputers used in scientific research. clusters (HPCC HPCC - High Performance Computing and Communications ) in order to accelerate its oil and gas exploration program. HPCC links hundreds to thousands of standards-based servers together to act as a single, powerful compute engine. By using off-the shelf, standardized components, Dell customers can expand, or "scale out," their clusters easily to respond to increased demand in a cost effective manner. Dell was awarded the contract to build and implement the second cluster phase at Saudi Aramco's EXPED EXPED Expedition EXPED Expedite Computing Center to cope with processing the ever-increasing tide of seismic data. The supercomputing cluster in phase two comprises 910 Dell PowerEdge This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. servers, adding 1,820 Intel Pentium III The successor to the Pentium II from Intel. Introduced in the spring of 1999 at 500 MHz, the Pentium III architecture was similar to the Pentium II with the addition of 70 new instructions optimized for multimedia (see SSE). processors to Saudi Aramco's compute engine. Dell implemented Scali Manage(tm) from Scali AS to ensure that the 910 servers could be managed from a central point with maximum efficiency and reliability. Processing the seismic data allows geophysicists This is a list of geophysicists, people who were trained in or practice geophysics:
Exploration for an oil strike can require up to thirty crews to be on standby at a high daily cost. The implementation of the Dell cluster resulted in a positive oil strike in only two weeks, as opposed to four weeks with their legacy proprietary system, providing an immediate return on investment for Saudi Aramco. "We initially installed a 32-node cluster last year and saw the cost benefits immediately; we recently worked with Dell to add a further 910 nodes," commented Mohammad Huwaidi Saudi Aramco's Exploration Systems Analyst. "Using standards-based systems from suppliers such as Dell enables us to build the fastest yet least expensive Prestack Time Migration (PSTM PSTM Pre-Stack Time Migration (seismic processing) PSTM Photon Scanning Tunneling Microscopy ) system. Our ability to rapidly and inexpensively add computing power to our cluster is one of the major benefits of the Intel platform," Huwaidi continued. "The Saudi Aramco installation demonstrates that global customers are using standards-based technologies to 'fulfill' their most challenging computing requirements," said Walid Moneimne, vice president, Enterprise Systems Group, Dell EMEA. "The performance and price benefits in scale-out environments for applications previously conducted on expensive proprietary systems, have made supercomputing increasingly accessible to the mainstream market. A Dell HPCC solution leveraging high-performance clustering software, such as Scali Manage, can deliver the same results as a proprietary system for as much as a tenth of the cost." About Dell Dell Computer Corporation (company) Dell Computer Corporation - One of the biggest US manufacturers of IBM PC compatibles. "From notebooks to networks", their slogan says. http://us.dell.com. (Nasdaq:DELL) is a premier provider of products and services required for customers worldwide to build their information-technology and Internet infrastructures. Company revenue for the past four quarters totaled $36.9 billion. Dell, through its direct business model, designs, manufactures and customizes products and services to customer requirements, and offers an extensive selection of software and peripherals. Information on Dell and its products can be obtained at www.dell.com. Dell is a trademark of Dell Computer Corporation. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. |
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