1. IBM Case Study
Tricon Geophysics accelerates oil and
gas discovery with IBM iDataPlex
supercomputer
Overview
■ Challenge
To improve customer service,
Tricon Geophysics needed to
upgrade its supercomputing
facilities, but faced strict limita-
tions in the available floorspace,
cooling capacity and electrical
power in its data center
■ Solution
Tricon Geophysics selected
an IBM System x iDataPlex Tricon Geophysics, Inc. is a processing, “ IBM iDataPlex has
and IBM System x3950 and seismic imaging and reservoir charac- given us a significant
System x3950M2 servers to terization company for the oil and gas
process large volumes of seis-
advantage over our
industry with offices located in Denver,
mic data on behalf of its CO, Houston, TX, Caracas, Venezuela,
local competitors,
customers and Bogota, Colombia. Tricon provides enabling us to carry
■ Benefits 3D and 2D seismic imaging services out complex seismic
— Quadrupled processing including 3D pre-stack migration. Tricon migrations much more
speed has become a recognized leader in the
rapidly.”
— Helps customers to pinpoint process of pre-stack merging of exist-
ing 3D volumes. — Bernardo Briones, Tricon
the best places to drill,
Geophysics Venezuela General
enabling them to find new Manager
reserves faster and at lower The discovery of new underground
cost reserves of oil and gas relies heavily on
— Consumes 40 percent less seismography. Prospecting companies
energy than alternative create vibrations using vibroseis trucks
solutions or explosives on land, and air guns
under sea, and measure the reflected
pressure waves from underground
structures using sensors. When the

2. underground rocks are uniform, it is relatively simple to use the reflected pressure
waves to build up detailed and accurate three-dimensional underground maps.
These maps help prospecting companies identify the most likely places to find oil
or gas reserves, maximizing the likelihood that costly exploratory drilling will pro-
duce a return on investment.
However, when there is underground structural complexity, the pressure waves will
be scattered (reflected and diffracted), creating an inaccurate picture. The tech-
nique of “seismic migration” uses advanced computational algorithms to perform
an inversion operation involving the rearrangement of seismic information elements
so that reflections and diffractions are plotted at their true locations.
The need for speed
In general terms, oil and gas companies are under increasing pressure from their
stakeholders to find new reserves faster, and this creates constant demand for
more compute power in seismic migration. In the particular case of Tricon
Geophysics, there were two additional factors driving the need to invest in new
supercomputing facilities. First, the Venezuelan government had started offshore
prospecting north of the Paria Peninsula, in 2,500 km2 blocks (much larger than
typical onshore blocks). Second, there was increasing demand for more sophisti-
cated onshore seismic migrations, fueling explosive growth in data volumes.
The existing cluster at Tricon Geophysics was not powerful enough to meet cus-
tomer demands, and there were significant physical constraints on building a new
supercomputer. The company’s Caracas data center had very limited floorspace,
cooling capacity and electrical power-making it vital to find a solution that offered
extremely high compute power within a compact and energy-efficient
form-factor.
Cool, compact, efficient
Working with IBM Systems Lab Services and Training, IBM Global Technology
Services and IBM Business Partner Strix Technologies, S.A., Tricon Geophysics
selected an IBM System x® iDataPlex™ running Red Hat Enterprise Linux® as
the basis for its new supercomputer. The iDataPlex is half the depth of a standard
42U rack, but can hold twice the usual number of servers. Each of the
84 iDataPlex dx340 nodes in the rack features two quad-core Intel® Xeon®
5440 Series 2.83GHz processors and 32GB RAM. Cooling is provided by an
IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger, which cuts cooling costs by 20 percent,

3. compared to a standard rack with equivalent compute power. Pre-processing of
Solution Components
the seismic data for the TSUNAMI Migration Suite application running on the
iDataPlex is handled by an IBM System x3950 M2 server also running Red Hat Hardware
Enterprise Linux. ● IBM System x® iDataPlex™
● IBM System x3950
iDataPlex is a key solution in the IBM Dynamic Infrastructure portfolio, providing a
● IBM System x3950 M2
flexible and highly efficient platform that enables businesses to manage the signifi-
cant ongoing growth in data volumes while decreasing their energy costs and Software
carbon footprint. ● Red Hat Enterprise Linux®
Services
“IBM proposed iDataPlex, which solved all three physical problems in our data cen-
ter, giving us a flexible, low-cost solution that helps us improve customer service,” ● IBM Global Technology Services
says Bernardo Briones, Tricon Geophysics Venezuela General Manager. “We esti- ● IBM Systems Lab Services and
mate that the iDataPlex consumes 40 percent less energy than the alternative solu- Training
tions we considered, and the cooling requirements are similarly reduced. It is also ● IBM Server Product Services for
extremely compact, packing 672 processor cores in a double-density rack includ- IBM System x servers
ing the Rear Door heat Exchanger, making it the ideal solution for us. Without ● IBM Hardware Maintenance Services
iDataPlex, we would have needed to move offices in order to have a larger data
Business Partner
center.”
● Strix Technologies, S.A.
Technology and service and Systems Lab Services and Training
The IBM Global Technology Services and Systems Lab Services and Training team
helped Tricon Geophysics to set up and operate the new platform, and now pro-
vides ongoing maintenance and technical support. “Our in-house system engineer
worked closely with IBM Global Technology Services, and the skills-transfer gave
us confidence that we could operate the iDataPlex cluster,” says Bernardo Briones.
“IBM provides a very responsive service when we require expert external support,
and the consultants from Strix are also highly capable.”
Green light for business success
The iDataPlex solution has quadrupled the speed of processing at Tricon
Geophysics, enabling the company to process larger and more complex geophysi-
cal data sets within shorter timeframes. Faster computation enables Tricon
Geophysics’ customers to find new reserves faster and with a greater degree of
certainty, minimizing the need for costly exploratory drilling.
“IBM iDataPlex has given us a significant advantage over our local competitors,
enabling us to carry out complex seismic migrations on massive data sets much
more rapidly,” says Bernardo Briones. “Seismic data in Venezuela is classified as

4. nonexportable by the government, so prospecting companies can no longer send © Copyright IBM Corporation 2009
IBM Systems and Technology Group
it to very large computational clusters abroad. With iDataPlex, we can meet their
Route 100
deadlines while keeping the data in-country - this means that we can deliver a Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
much more attractive service.”
Produced in the United States of America
October 2009
The iDataPlex solution actually delivered even better results than expected at Tricon All Rights Reserved
Geophysics. Bernardo Briones cites the example of a particular migration that pre- IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, iDataPlex and
System x are trademarks or registered
viously took two months to run, and can now be completed within just two weeks. trademarks of International Business Machines
The company’s customers get their results faster, which contributes to their ability Corporation in the United States, other
countries, or both. If these and other
to find and bring new reserves to production faster. IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first
occurrence in this information with a trademark
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“In addition to giving us a significant increase in processing power, while keeping registered or common law trademarks owned
energy and cooling requirements low, the IBM iDataPlex solution was quick and by IBM at the time this information was
published. Such trademarks may also be
easy to deploy,” says Bernardo Briones. “The iDataPlex solution is effectively a registered or common law trademarks in other
supercomputer-in-a-box: a packaged solution that we were able to deploy in our countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is
available on the Web at “Copyright and
existing data center without any requirement for specialist racks or cooling sys- trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/
tems. We can now run more sophisticated migrations on larger data sets and pro- copytrade.shtml
Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered
duce faster results for our customers - the IBM technology has effectively opened trademarks of Intel Corporation or its
up a new market for us, enabling us to compete against larger data processing subsidiaries in the United States and other
countries.
companies in the US.”
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products. Neither IBM nor Strix Technologies,
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For more information about Tricon Geophysics Inc., visit: concerning the other’s products.
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