The latest edition of the TOP500 list of high performance computers has an upgraded edition of ENI’s machine leading the oil and gas computing stakes. ENI’s ‘HPC2’ IBM iDataPlex is n° 11 at 3 petaflops. This pips Total’s 1 petaflop Pangea for the top industry slot and BP’s 2 petaflop machine (not in the Top500). At n° 43 is Saudi Aramco’s Faris HP cluster with 0.8 petaflops.
Practically all operating systems in the TOP500 are Unix/Linux-based. There are no new Windows-based machines since 2012 when the Azure/Faenov machine came in at n° 165 (now n° 309). China’s Dawning/Magic Cube (0.15PF), which entered the Top500 at n° 11 in 2008 is now down to n° 237. Lots more in the Top500 lists.
This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2014 Issue # 7.
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