Second SX-5 installed at Veritas

Toronto 19 Jan 00 Veritas DGC Inc. announced that it has begun installation of a new NEC SX-5/6A vector supercomputer in its Houston data processing facility. The installation is the second in a series of upgrades to Veritas' high-end data processing systems. An NEC SX-5/6B began production in the Singapore data processing center in November 1999.

"This system should be in production by the end of the month," said Ted Mariner, Vice President of Advanced Hardware and Software Systems for Veritas. "The Singapore upgrade went very smoothly and we expect the same here. The SX-5 is one of the most advanced computer systems available today and represents a significant upgrade to our data processing capabilities." The Houston system comprises six CPU's, 32 Gigabytes of main memory and 12 Terabytes of HIPPI RAID disk. The system will provide a four-fold increase in performance over the previous NEC SX-4 system that it is replacing, providing compute power of over 48 Gigaflops. This system will allow for considerable expansion within the installed chassis to a maximum of 16 CPUs and 128 Gigabytes of main memory, providing over 128 Gigaflops of processing power.

The SX-5 is connected by high-speed networks to a formidable array of additional data processing and visualization systems. Comprising more than 200 nodes of SUN, HP and SGI computers with an aggregate performance of over 200 Gigaflops, these systems support over 40 Terabytes of RAID disk and 250 Gigabytes of main memory. "The investment being made by Veritas in this new generation of supercomputers is an indication of our commitment to our clients' requirements for faster turnaround on complex 3D depth imaging projects, " says Colin Murdoch, Senior Vice President, Technology. "These systems provide Veritas with a global compute resource to respond to our customers' needs. The increase in compute power allows the development and utilization of major technical enhancements, adding fidelity and accuracy to our pre and post-stack imaging algorithms," says Murdoch.

Veritas has recently embarked on some of the largest 3D prestack depth migration (PSDM) projects in the geophysical industry. Jerry Young, Manager of Depth Imaging for Veritas, explains that "projects carried out on a non-exclusive basis on Veritas' extensive deepwater Gulf of Mexico data library will be positively impacted by the SX-5. Our goal is to complete 3D PSDM projects covering 100 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Blocks in under six months."

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