Amax: Next-Generation GPU and Big Data Storage Platforms

AMAX Information Technologies, Inc., in HPC solutions, showcased its GPU technologies and scalable Big Data storage solutions at the SEG 2011 conference.

The latest AMAX GPU offerings combine the massively parallel compute performance of NVIDIA’s powerful C2075/M2090 Tesla GPUs with the fastest multi-core Intel and AMD processors for up to 600x the performance of CPU-only computing, depending on the application.

AMAX’s scalable Big Data storage solutions boast PCI-E Flash SSDs for accelerating I/O, SAS/SATA spindle HDDs for massive storage, 80+ certified high-efficiency power supplies, and InfiniBand and FCl interconnects, pushing the performance envelope of today’s Oil & Gas HPC applications for the edge in oil deposit discovery.

AMAX’s next-generation GPU solutions take advantage of NVIDIA’s Tesla GPUs to maximize performance and efficiency, and combined with the latest Intel or AMD processors, delivers up to twenty times the performance of CPU-only solutions for seismic imaging and modeling. Tasks that previously took weeks, months, or even years on CPU-based clusters are now being completed in mere hours or even minutes with Tesla GPUs. AMAX’s GPU platforms are for oil & gas compute intensive applications, such as Kirchhoff Time and Depth Migration (KTM, KDM), Wave Equation Migration (WEM), Spectral Inversion, and Reverse Time Migration (RTM). AMAX’s GPU expertise is in configuring high-performance clusters, achieving density of up to 128 M2090 Tesla cards in a 42U rack, while still maintaining flexibility and scalability for the demanding seismic imaging and modeling projects.

AMAX’s advanced Big Data storage technologies provide a line of scalable and available total hardware and software solutions engineered to promote sustained high-performance and reliable storage. The AMAX StorMax-X2 iSCSI clustered storage and StorMax-X3 Scale-Out NAS storage solutions are designed to service customer demand for smaller meta-data as well as large datasets used in applications like 3D seismic imaging and reverse time migration.

AMAX’s open-architecture designed storage offerings range from individual storage servers to multi-petabyte rack storage solutions, are intended to address performance scalability, extreme density, and robust storage management and includes features such as Flexible Volume Management, Data Security Protection, Data De-duplication, and Multi-fabricMulti-protocol support.

"With the appropriate equipment and the right partner, companies in the Oil & Gas industry can improve efficiency and ROI across many application areas and gain a competitive advantage," said James Huang, Product Marketing Manager at AMAX. "Our experience with integrating NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and Big Data storage technologies into our HPC product families ensure that our customers are continuously deploying the most advanced solutions designed to minimize complex seismic processing cycle times and increase job throughput."

AMAX products featured at the show include:

• ClusterMax SuperG High-Density GPU Cluster – An advanced 3U 16-GPU base server and two 1U Intel or AMD host systems deliver the highest-density clustered GPU solution on the market today.
• ServMax PSC-2n 4-GPU Personal Supercomputer – Features up to 1, 792 GPU cores, delivering 4.12 Teraflops of single precision performance, and provides the muscle to tackle increasingly complex, multithreaded applications.
• StorMax-X2 VSA Parallel iSCSI Clustered Storage – Developed to provide a high-performance clustered storage environment necessary for HPC computing and disaster recovery.
• Multi-protocol 2U SAN Storage – Designed for centralized data backup with support for both 8Gb fibre channel and 1Gb iSCSI host connectivity for maximum storage flexibility.