SEISMIC SURVEYING
Natural gas exploration with scaleable visualisation solutions cuts cost of ownership
to rise. Contrast that with known deposits of petroleum and natural gas continuously decreasing, and the reality is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult and costly to locate these energy sources. Through realistic 3D rendering technology, geoscientists are able to study the natural formations of the earth and find the most likely areas where natural gas pockets and petroleum deposits may be located. Traditionally, this requires massive IT
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investment costs due to the high performance computing and 3D rendering requirements of the professional workstations used by these geoscientists. The total cost of ownership (TCO) for each workstation has historically been high due in part to the expensive, high-end 3D hardware used in each of these workstations. This set-up has also tended to be highly ineffective, as each workstation deals with a high volume of data for both 3D rendering, as well as the actual scientific calculations. Additionally, sending all of this data over a network creates a data bottleneck from
he need for petroleum and natural gas is relentless, and demand worldwide continues
the server room to the desktop, making it both inefficient as well as slowing down the overall network. Through new open-source thin client software
and utilization of NVIDIA Quadro Plex scalable visualization technology, Australia-based Santos, Ltd. overcame these limitations to provide real-time 3D rendering, while enabling their geoscientists to utilize standard-issue notebook computers. Showcasing their expertise, Santos, Ltd. developed an open-source thin client – using VirtualGL and TurboVNC – to provide real-time 3D rendering using data direct from the field for the geoscientists who are stationed across Australia and elsewhere in South-East Asia. Through this thin-client solution, Santos’
geoscientists, users and clients began to move away from high-end workstations entirely, as the software is efficient enough to allow high-end 3D rendering even on their lower-end notebook computers. Santos uses IBM x3650 M3 server utilizing
NVIDIA Quadro Plex scalable visualization systems. All 12 servers located at their various offices are
powerful enough to serve more than 600 users at a time to provide a high-performance, 3D Linux production environment, which their users can access from any Santos’ office using a standard Windows notebook PC with no 3D capabilities. Rather than have a high-end workstation deal with the 3D rendering and calculations, each server maximizes performance by loadbalancing the four GPUs contained in each NVIDIA Quadro Plex connected to each server to handle hundreds of 3D render requests from multiple users at a single time. Running Paradigm thin client software, the efficient rendering and processing power provided by the NVIDIA Quadro Plex-powered servers enable faster 3D render for these requests. The resulting data is then compressed and delivered to users via the Paradigm software using TurboVNC, making it faster, more reliable and more effective. Santos’ change to an NVIDIA Quadro Plex- based thin client solution is also scalable, as the IBM servers handle loadbalancing automatically between user sessions.
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