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Oil sector accepts Linux software in IBM mainframes

International Business Machines Corp, the largest backer of the Linux operating system, sold a Linux supercomputer to Western-Geco for oil exploration after similar sales to Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch/Shell Group.

Terms of the sale to UK-based WesternGeco, an exploration-services company, weren't disclosed. The supercomputer is composed of 256 servers, each containing two Intel Corp processors. The system runs software that converts seismic soundings to digital maps so WesternGeco clients can distinguish oil fields from other underground formations.

IBM is selling relatively inexpensive supercomputers to the oil industry and expects sales to grow, said David Turek, head of Linux emerging technologies in IBM's server group. Clusters of small servers linked by the free Linux system are particularly well-suited to programs that graphically display seismic data, he said.

Such supercomputers can be bought for less than US$1 million.

"We see Linux clustering in the oil industry growing at a very rapid rate," Turek said. "The applications map to it very nicely." Supercomputers typically divide large problems into many small calculations that can be processed simultaneously instead of in sequence. Though Linux isn't yet suited to handling calculations on large servers with more than eight processors, it can smoothly link smaller servers to let them act as a single computer, Turek said.

"They can scale pretty much to your heart's content," he said. The linked computers are managed from a single console.

The retail price of x330 servers similar to those purchased by WesternGeco is about US$3,000, according to IBM's Web site.

In December, Armonk, New York-based IBM said it had sold the largest commercial computer running Linux to Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the No. 2 publicly traded oil company. That system consisted of 1,024 x330 computers.

Earlier this month, France's Compagnie Generale de Geophysique SA, an exploration-services company, bought a Linux-based IBM supercomputer with 640 servers.

Supercomputers typically divide large problems into many small calculations that can be processed simultaneously instead of in sequence.

Though Linux isn't yet suited to handling calculations on large servers with more than eight processors, it can smoothly link smaller servers to let them act as a single computer, Turek said.

``They can scale pretty much to your heart's content,'' he said. The linked computers are managed from a single console.

The retail price of x330 servers similar to those purchased by WesternGeco is about US$3,000, according to IBM's Web site.

In December, IBM said it had sold the largest commercial computer running Linux to Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the No. 2 publicly traded oil company. That system consisted of 1,024x330 computers.

Earlier this month, France's Compagnie Generale de Geophysique SA, an exploration-services company, bought a Linux-based IBM supercomputer with 640 servers.

IBM has opened a training center in Taipei specifically for assisting Linux users with understanding the software.
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