Energy Firms Clamor for Clusters

Energy companies represent the smallest of the storage networking vertical markets, but the niche is rich enough to keep at least one set of storage firms busy full time.

"Upstream oil and gas [which includes geological exploration and well drilling] is among our top three vertical markets," says Brett Goodwin, VP of marketing at Isilon Systems. The companies that survey and drill new wells for the big oil companies are second only to media and entertainment firms in needing the kind of clustered NAS system that is stock-in-trade for Isilon and its competitors, including the likes of OnStor and Panasas.

One customer tells why. "We store very large, very dense images... We want to stream data in parallel onto racks of Linux clusters... [and] we are driven by cost," says Richard Verm, VP of research and technology at Geophysical Development Corp. (GDC). His firm offers seismic data processing and exploration services to oil and gas companies.

Like other energy firms, GDC collects huge digitized map files, typically consuming 1 or 2 Tbytes per file. Its preference for Linux clustering is also typical of scientific firms working in this space -- as is the need to cut costs.

"Customers are getting cheaper about spending," Verm says. "It's tied to demand. There's enough work for suppliers now, and customers read the papers, too. When they read that the cost of computers is going down, there's a pushback... We have to essentially lower our costs and improve performance at the same time."Other firms cite the need for NAS that works with clustered storage. Kelman Technologies Inc., whose business is similar to GDC's, invested in a Linux computing cluster, only to find that its traditional RAID boxes (brand unspecified) couldn't keep up. Technicians had to manually intervene to move seismic data files from one tier of storage to another, in order to ensure data didn't stall at any point in the server farm, leaving expensive processing power unused.

Kelman has added 25 Tbytes of storage across multiple sites, equipping each site with a Cisco SFS 7000 InfiniBand Server Switch to keep traffic moving between the server farm and the Isilon IQ clusters. Kelman claims the change has speeded up its ability to respond to oil and gas clients, who have tight drilling schedules. The ability to add more storage quickly is also a plus. "The manageability of Isilon IQ has been a huge advantage in comparison to our previous environment," said Brad Stephens, Kelman's manager of IT infrastrucure, in a prepared statement.

It all adds up to a love affair between oil and gas companies and clustered NAS systems, which allow firms that explore the world for new pipelines to apply a single file system to a virtual pool of storage -- one that can be augmented or reduced as needed. (See Cluster Clamor and Texas Tea.)

GDC has two 5-Tbyte shelves of disk storage from Panasas, which includes some inexpensive SATA arrays. Verm's group considered hardware from EMC and clustering software from Polyserve before settling on Panasas, which he says delivered the best throughput for the price he was willing to pay. GDC uses the cheaper storage as a staging platform for data as it is taken up and moved through various departments on Linux servers. A common filing system streamlines the process and ensures data integrity.

While Isilon, OnStor, and Panasas have claimed significant wins in the energy space, they won't be alone for long. (See Panasas Leads to 10x Increase, Seismic Picks Panasas, Energy Firm Implements Ibrix, and Isilon Powers Gas Companies.) Other companies want their slice of the energy pie. Hewlett-Packard, for instance, OEMs clustering software from Polyserve for its own clustered NAS offering. Network Appliance will have a clustered NAS when it fully integrates the technology purchased with Spinnaker in 2003 into its GX operating system (no date has been set).Despite the activity in clustered NAS, the energy vertical market, which includes oil and gas companies, is relatively small. According to market research firm IDC, energy accounted for just under 5 percent total disk storage purchases in the U.S. last year.

In the energy segment, total disk storage revenues in the U.S. were under $500 million in 2005, compared with $1.5 billion for manufacturing and over $2 billion for financial services.

Still, growth is solid if not dramatic. By 2009, energy's compound annual growth rate will be 2.7 percent, and financial services will show 2.4 percent.

Figure 1:

Growth in oil and gas points to a reliable stream of storage sales. According to IDC's Energy Insights Upstream Oil and Gas analyst, Sekhar Venkat, a range of factors ensure the segment's vitality:

Bottom line? There's enough storage business in the energy sector to keep a small range of NAS clustering firms busy and competitive, even though the market will remain relatively small.

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch

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