Offshore Staff
SAN DONATO MILANESE, Italy--Eni has started using a new petaflop class supercomputer at its Ferrera Erbognone data center in Pavia.
The new system’s computing capacity of over 3 petaflops is expected to improve the accuracy and resolution of Eni’sgeophysical and geological studies for exploration and development purposes. That performance, it claims, is comparable to the most powerful computing centers worldwide.
The supercomputer is based on a cluster architecture and features 1,500 dual-CPU nodes (24,000 cores), enhanced by 1,300 general purpose graphics processing units, which are used as computational accelerators (equivalent to 20,800 additional cores).
Cluster nodes are connected via a high speed internal network, with a high bandwidth parallel storage system providing 5 petabyte disk capacity.
Eni plans to maintain the capacity at the level required to match its business needs, with half the nodes replaced each year to keep pace with the technology development cycle.
The system will support execution of Eni 3D seismic imaging packages and advanced petroleum system modeling algorithms.
This is acontinuation of a trend among exploration companies to boost their ability to use new, more computation-heavy approaches to processing and interpreting geotechnical data.
11/25/2013
