14 DAY TRIAL // Norway-based Electromagnetic Geoservices (EMGS) company has opened its new server cluster in Trondheim. The computing cluster was built using 1800 PowerEdge 1955 servers in Dell's blade offering, and can deliver the same amount of computing power as 20,000 high-end personal computers. It carries a total memory of 22 terabytes, and can perform 70 teraflops.
The company previously had a smaller cluster, comprised of 500 blade servers, that were each equipped with two dual-core CPUs. According to the company, the Trondheim computing cluster is the most powerful unit in Norway, and one of the top 10 clusters based in Europe, if we consider the amount of processed data per second. Electromagnetic Geoservices is using the Dell-powered cluster for processing electromagnetic signals.
The company has developed a technology that allows it to detect oil in places that had been described as with no exploitable resources of this kind. However, in order to process the electromagnetic signals and transform it into comprehensive information, the software needs tremendous amounts of computing power, measured in teraflops.
"The major benefit for our customers is that our capacity for simultaneously handling large datasets has dramatically increased," says Terje Eidesmo, EMGS president and CEO. "This improves turnaround times and enables more sophisticated imaging and modeling algorithms to be used, which improves modeling and processing accuracy," he continued.
The deployment of the first batch of PowerEdge servers took two months, which is an impressive achievement, given the fact that such infrastructures are not quite easy to ship and install, then interconnect them to operate as a whole. According to Dell, the units were delivered 7-10 days after order, and the first 530 servers were manufactured in Ireland, then shipped via trailer to Norway.
The computer cluster has been exclusively deployed by Dell, and the company employees are reported to have taken care of all the tasks, from planning to implementation and support.