Paradigm Epos 4 integrated

seismic-processing solution guide

A technical report of the Paradigm Epos 4

integrated seismic solution on the
IBM SONAS and Storwize V7000
Unified storage system

Udayasuryan Kodoly
Billy Robinson

IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement

June 2011

© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2012

Table of contents
Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1
Intended audience ....................................................................................................................................1
Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................ 2
Key solution components........................................................................................................ 2
IBM SONAS benefits ................................................................................................................................2
IBM Storwize V7000 Unified overview .....................................................................................................4
IBM Storwize V7000 Unified storage-system features ......................................................4
IBM Storwize V7000 data-protection features ...................................................................5
Paradigm Epos 4 software benefits .........................................................................................................6
Summary of validation solution .............................................................................................. 7
Architecture of the validation solution ................................................................................... 7
IBM SONAS system base configuration ..................................................................................................8
Paradigm Epos 4 server configuration .................................................................................................. 10
NFS mount options with SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified ................................................................ 10
Tests with Paradigm 3D imaging and migration .................................................................. 11
3D Kirchoff prestack time migration ...................................................................................................... 11
3D common shot wave equation migration ........................................................................................... 11
3D common reflection angle migration .................................................................................................. 11
Summary................................................................................................................................. 13
Appendix A: Glossary ............................................................................................................ 14
Appendix B: Materials used in the lab setup........................................................................ 15
Appendix C: Resources ......................................................................................................... 16
About the authors .................................................................................................................. 18
Trademarks and special notices ........................................................................................... 19

IBM SONAS and Paradigm Epos 4 integrated seismic-processing solution guide

Abstract
This technical paper provides essential information on IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage
(SONAS) and the IBM Storwize V7000 Unified storage system and the Paradigm Epos 4 integrated
seismic-processing solution.
A defining characteristic of today’s oil and gas exploration and production industry is the massive
amount of data that must be collected, processed, analyzed and stored. This takes place in a context
of frequent changes in priorities, revised project scope or staffing, asset divestments and other
disruptive events. Therefore, energy companies require a data-management and administration
environment that can adapt to changing circumstances with little or no downtime.
The combination of either IBM SONAS or the Storwize V7000 Unified storage system and Paradigm
Epos solution enable continuous sharing, quick and easy access to the massive amount of data, and
availability with no downtime in a secure and controlled environment.

Introduction
High-performance computing applications for oil and gas exploration revolve around processing
extremely large amounts of very rich data such as prestack seismic data, which can involve simulation
that spans long time periods. Prestack data can be hundreds of terabytes (TB) and even petabytes (PB)
before the final seismic-imaging application is complete. Today’s highly-complex seismic data-acquisition
systems employ new techniques, such as wide-azimuth towed streamer (WATS) and coil shooting for
offshore data acquisition, resulting in full azimuth (FAZ) seismic data, which is stored for later processing.
All the data-generation techniques can create hundreds of gigabytes per hour. To effectively manage, use
and quickly access this data, companies need a proven, highly-scalable and available, high performance,
enterprise-reliable data-storage solution such as IBM® Scale Out Network Attached Storage (IBM
SONAS) for enterprise demands and IBM Storwize® V7000 Unified, both of which address the
requirements of the midrange market.

IBM SONAS and the Storwize V7000 Unified storage system offer significant flexibility. Either can have a
single file system that can range in size from terabytes to petabytes and that is capable of accessing the
entire set of seismic data. IBM SONAS and Storwize V7000 Unified are ideal storage systems that can
provide a highly-scalable file system to handle the exponential growth of seismic data. Both IBM SONAS
and Storwize V7000 Unified provide exceptional performance for raw storage for seismic processing.
For seismic data processing to yield reliable results, IBM SONAS or the Storwize V7000 Unified storage
system and the Paradigm Epos 4 integrated solution has the following key attributes:
• Well-defined, high-performance storage architecture with attractive economic benefits
• High-density storage enclosures (up to 21.6 PB for SONAS)
• Highly-available file system with outstanding performance
• Simple-to-manage, comprehensive business-continuity capabilities

Both IBM SONAS and Storwize V7000 Unified as well as the Paradigm Epos 4 integrated seismic
processing solution meets all of these requirements by offering a reference configuration that is suitable
for the seismic-processing industry.

Intended audience
This technical report is intended for:
• Integrators, suppliers and vendors in the oil and gas industries
• Oil and gas companies

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Prerequisites
This technical paper assumes familiarity with the following prerequisites:
• Basic knowledge of the IBM SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified storage system
• Basic knowledge of Paradigm Rock & Fluid Canvas 2009 | Epos 4

Key solution components

The solution consists of the following key components:
• Either the IBM SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified storage system
• Paradigm Rock & Fluid Canvas 2009 | Epos 4

This section describes the key benefits of these essential components.

IBM SONAS benefits

The oil and gas industry requires data storage for a complex and diverse group of professionals.
Geologists, geophysicists, engineers, landmen, accountants, lawyers and field personnel require fast and
consistent access to data. Additionally, each of these professions also has working categories, such as
reservoir engineers, drilling engineers, operations engineers and environment engineers, all of whom
need seamless access to a myriad of data formats. IBM SONAS is designed to meet and exceed the
requirements of this diverse set of disciplines by offering a highly-available and extremely-scalable
solution with exceptional performance.

IBM SONAS offers the following features (see Figure 1):

• Automated policy-based file management that controls backups and restores, snapshots and
remote replication-based asynchronous replication technology
• A single global namespace with logical paths that do not change because the physical data move
• Support for serial-attached SCSI (SAS), nearline SAS and Serial Advanced Technology
Attachment (SATA) drives
• High-availability world-class clustering (90 nodes fully configured) and load balancing
• Extreme scalability up to 21.6 PB accommodates growing data streams and access requirements
• Centralized management
• Centralized backup
• An interconnected cluster of file-serving and network-interfacing nodes in a redundant high-speed
data network

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Figure 1: Real-time seismic data analysis

Collecting and processing large data sets obtained by a variety of onshore and offshore seismic-
acquisition systems is essential to the upstream exploration industry. The IBM SONAS advanced
architecture offers an economical and reliable enterprise-class, high-performance computing storage
environment suitable for the high throughput required for seismic processing.

Key features of the IBM SONAS solutions include:

• The ability to accommodate the real-time seismic data throughput requirements of today’s seismic-
imagining applications, from Kirchoff prestack-depth migration (PSDM) all the way to Tilted
Transverse Isotrophy (TTI) Reverse Time Migration (RTM) codes
• The ablility to deliver the prestack data and velocity file to HPC clusters made up of hundreds or
thousands of compute cores
• Tested systems with seismic-imaging applications to ensure interoperability and high confidence
• Advanced IBM SONAS architecture delivering streamlined management for large data sets
• Extreme scalability that accommodates growing data streams
• Native hierarchical storage management (HSM) and information-lifecycle management (ILM)
features, allowing longer retention polices and access requirements
• The ability to meet service demands or metadata and large file sets used in applications such as
3D and 4D seismic processing and other related workloads

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IBM Storwize V7000 Unified overview
The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified system is a virtualizing Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)
storage system that supports both block protocols and file protocols. This unified system includes the
Storwize V7000 file module and the Storwize V7000 storage system.

The file module is a clustered system that consists of two units, providing file systems for use by network-
attached storage (NAS). The file module uses Storwize V7000 to provide the file module with volumes.
Other volumes, which are block volumes, are provided on the SAN to be presented to hosts.

The Storwize V7000 storage system consists of a drive enclosure called the control enclosure. Both hard
disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) are supported. The control enclosure contains disk
drives and two node canisters that are managed as a single clustered system. Expansion enclosures
contain drives and are attached to the control enclosure. Expansion canisters include the serial-attached
SCSI (SAS) interface hardware that enables the node hardware to use the drives of the expansion
enclosures (see Figure 1).

Figure 2: IBM Storwize V7000 Unified configuration

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified storage-system features

The following features provide outstanding value when deploying IBM Storwize V7000 Unified:
• Simplified management and intuitive GUI.
• More control with less space, cooling and energy costs, all of which aids rapid implementation
and deployment compared to other storage-solution offerings.
• Virtualizing existing storage infrastructure improves administrator productivity up to two times.

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 • Improve space utilization from 33 to 50 percent compared to other storage solutions, and
reduce capacity requirements by up to 75 percent with the space-efficient IBM Tivoli® Storage
FlashCopy® Manager offering.
• Increase storage performance up to 200 percent by using IBM System Storage® Easy Tier™
technology.
• Dynamic migration helps speed time-to-value from weeks or months to days, and also
eliminates the cost of add-on migration tools and provides continuous availability of
applications by eliminating downtime.
• Thin-provisioning makes it possible to use (acquire) only the required disk capacity.
• The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified system consolidates block and file storage in a single system
for simplicity and greater efficiency.
• IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Disk Select Performance Optimization technology
can reduce service times of resource-constrained application by an average of 48 percent and
up to a maximum of 90 percent.
• IBM Systems Director Storage Control, based on Tivoli Storage Productivity Center, can be
used for midsize clients to integrate storage management with server and network
management at 50 percent lower hardware costs (by using a single server instead of two
servers) and requires lower skills to learn (single UI).
• IBM Active Cloud Engine™ technology provides automated policy-based management of files
to reduce costs through the use of tiered storage and improve data governance.
• Clustered systems support the needs of your growing business and enable you to buy
additional hardware only as needed.

IBM Storwize V7000 data-protection features

The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified system provides the following data-protection features:
• Remote replication functions create exact copies of data at remote locations for appropriate
disaster-recovery solutions.
• FlashCopy and snapshot functions create instant copies of data to minimize data loss.
• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack® continuously protects your data.
• Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication helps improve the efficiency of storage
replication through automation.
• Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager improves recovery-point objectives by more than 95
percent.

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Paradigm Epos 4 software benefits
The Paradigm Epos infrastructure and data management system underlies the entire Epos-based
application suite, links the applications to a shared database and provides a common working
environment for individuals or teams across disciplines. It is based on the client-server architecture, which
provides a multiuser, multi-project environment for data sharing and collaborative work.

Epos software is developed and supported by Paradigm to run in production seismic-processing

environments. The Epos software suite includes the seismic processing modules, imaging applications,
runtime libraries and utilities required for use on servers, clusters and parallel architectures.

There are three major components to the Epos infrastructure and software configuration:
• Paradigm Name Service (PNS) provides the ability for users to create and access seismic
projects for use within the Epos software.
• Epos services provide application-level access to seismic data, utility files, well data and other
resources within the software and processing environment.
• Epos applications provide end-to-end seismic processing tasks, which includes 3D prestack
seismic-imaging applications.

Key features of Paradigm Epos 4 software include:

• Dedicated data repositories for different data types, ensuring optimal performance
• SQL relational-data management for reliability, high performance, ease of use and configurability
• Multiple repositories of the same type, merging data from different sources without data replication
• Quick conversion of original data to project data coordinates
• Ability to mix data stored in different units and projection systems
• Full suite of customizable data loading, verification and harmonization tools to rapidly get data to
work
• Customizable role-defined access to specific operations and data
• Ability to grant or deny users viewing access or editing rights to data
• Different permission schemes per data type
• Powerful tools for easy site administration, even in companies with hundreds of users
• Ability to back up every project, survey, and database separately, including incremental or full
backups and selective backup of seismic files
• Optional compression and encryption

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Summary of validation solution
Either IBM SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified and the Paradigm Epos 4 integrated seismic-processing
solution are intended for high-performance random and sequential operations and sustaining exponential
growth in prestack seismic data.

The solution was validated on the IBM SONAS system with six interface nodes and two storage nodes
and Storwize V7000 Unified storage system. The file systems were laid out on 60 1TB SATA 7.2K rpm
disks and 60 2TB Nearline SAS 7.2K rpm disks with a RAID 6 configuration. Paradigm Epos 4 is installed
on the Red Hat RHEL5 server. Then, using the Network File System (NFS) protocol, the file system was
mounted on the Paradigm Epos 4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 5 server system. Either IBM SONAS or
Storwize V7000 Unified file systems were accessed by the Paradigm Epos 4 RHEL 5 server system
(through a 10 GbE network infrastructure using the NFS protocol). IBM SONAS interface nodes and
Storwize V7000 Unified enclosure and Paradigm Epos 4 RHEL 5 server systems were connected to the
Cisco Catalyst 6509 series Ethernet switch.

Architecture of the validation solution

The IBM SONAS and Paradigm Epos 4 integrated seismic-processing solution combined IBM SONAS
and Paradigm Epos 4 seismic processing software installed on RHEL 5 server system. Figure 3 shows
the validated solution configuration with IBM SONAS.

Figure 3: Example of a Paradigm Epos 4 seismic-processing solution configuration with IBM SONAS

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The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified storage system and Paradigm Epos 4 integrated seismic processing
solution combines IBM Storwize V7000 Unified and Paradigm Epos 4 seismic-processing software
installed on an RHEL 5 server system. Figure 4 shows the solution configuration with IBM Storwize
V7000 Unified.

Figure 4: Example of a Paradigm Epos 4 seismic-processing solution configuration with IBM Storwize V7000 Unified

IBM SONAS system base configuration

IBM SONAS system base configuration includes the following:
• Six interface nodes
• Two storage nodes
• Storage enclosure with 60 1-TB SATA 7.2K rpm disks and 60 2-TB nearline SAS 7.2K rpm disks
• IBM SONAS operating system version 1.3

Refer to Table 1 for more information.

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Unit Device location Optional or mandatory
42 50-port GbE Switch 2 Mandatory
41 50-port GbE Switch 1 Mandatory
40
39 2U blank filler panel
38
37 Management node (2851-SM1) 1 Mandatory
36 36-port IB 2851-I36 2 Mandatory
35 36-port IB 2851-I36 1 Mandatory
34
33 Interface node (2851-SIx) 6
32
31 Interface node (2851-SIx) 5
30
29 Interface node (2851-SIx) 4
28
27 Interface node (2851-SIx) 3 iPDU Mandatory
26
25 Interface node (2851-SIx) 2
24
23 Interface node (2851-SIx) 1 Mandatory
22 1U blank filler panel
21 KVM / Console port Mandatory
20
19 Storage node (2851-SSx) 2 Mandatory
18
17 Storage node (2851-SSx) 1 Mandatory
16
15
14 Disk storage expansion unit (2851-DE1)
13 2.2
12
11
10 Storage controller (2851-DR1) 2.1
9
8
7
6 Disk storage expansion unit (2851-DE1)
5 1.2
4
3
2 Storage controller (2851-DR1) 1.1 Mandatory
1
Table 1: Base rack configuration 3 - FC9005

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Paradigm Epos 4 server configuration
Paradigm Epos 4 server configuration includes:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.6
• X86-64 based server architecture
• Processor Intel® Xeon® X5650 2.67 GHz x 2 and 128 GB RAM
• 10 GbE, 2 port QLogic network interface

NFS mount options with SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified

The NFS export is created using the mkexport command line interface (CLI) or using the graphical user
interface (GUI) on the SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified storage system, before the NFS data store is
mounted on the Paradigm RHEL server system.
Usage: mkexport NFS share-name <mount point> (example /ibm/gpfs2/fs-paradigm) --nfs
“client1.domain.com(rw, no_root_squash);client2.domain.com(rw,no_root_squash)"

There are two types of NFS mounts from the Paradigm Epos4 RHEL server system.
• Soft mount: If soft mounts are used and the NFS server is lost, (for example: by reboot, server
crash or lost network connection) the client can close the connection and unmount the network
file system. However, soft mounts require more caching on the client than hard mounts to
maintain this ability. This can have an impact on performance. In addition, data can be lost if the
server crashes or network connection breaks down.
• Hard mount: With a hard mount, the client never gives up trying to reconnect to the server. The
advantage of a hard mount is the minimized risk of losing data. The disadvantage is that open I/O
requests can cause a high client workload, and the client must be rebooted to solve the issue.

It is good practice to use hard mounts with the interrupt (intr) option, which permits unmount of the
network file system in case the server is lost.

For this solution, the intr option is specified in the /etc/fstab configuration file:

9.11.83.101:/ibm/gpfs2/fs-paradigm nfs rw,hard,intr 0 0

With these fstab entries, the file system can be mounted on the Paradigm Epos4 RHEL server system
with the mount –a command and displayed with the df command.
Another setting that is worth consideration is timeo=n, which sets time-out period to n tenths of a second.
The IBM SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified Information Center recommends a timeout of 100 seconds
(timeo=1000).

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Tests with Paradigm 3D imaging and migration
For testing SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified with Paradigm Epos software, the test team ran several 3D
prestack migrations. Prestack 3D depth and time migrations account for approximately 70 to 80 percent
of the cycles and resources used today for seismic imaging and processing.

The three migrations used for these tests were as follows: 3D Kirchoff Prestack Time Migration,
3D Common Shot Wave Equation Migration and 3D Common Reflection Angle Migration.

Brief descriptions of these migration applications provided within Paradigm Epos software are given in
this section.

3D Kirchoff prestack time migration

The Kirchhoff migration is the most commonly used migration for time processing. It is most attractive
because of its speed and target-oriented capability, which allows efficient velocity-model building and
updating. In addition, the Kirchhoff migration offers adaptability to irregular acquisition geometries and
flexibility in handling anisotropic and converted wave-velocity models and surface topography.
• Kirchoff is a fast and target-oriented process that enables efficient velocity model building and
updating and is particularly adaptable to irregular acquisition geometries.
• It efficiently handles anisotropic and converted wave-velocity models and surface topography.
• It enables seamless integration with all Epos-based applications, including Echos and GeoDepth.

3D common shot wave equation migration

Common shot wave equation migration offers a practical solution for prestack depth imaging in areas if
multipathing and other complex wave phenomena occur. It allows for an unlimited number of arrivals, and
therefore has the potential to obtain high fidelity images even in areas of complex geological structures.

This wave equation migration is the preferred solution for irregular land seismic acquisitions. In this
method, the receiver’s wave field, containing a variety of offsets, and a shot wave field, generated from a
source signal, are downward-extrapolated. The image is obtained by dividing the two wave fields. This
method enables full control of the massive array of nodes, assures redundancy in case of node failure,
and enables stop and restart of the migration at any stage. The downward extrapolation is performed in
space and frequency domains.

3D common reflection angle migration

3D common reflection angle migration (CRAM) is a next-generation, ray-based migration for obtaining
high-quality, amplitude-preserved angle-dependent reflectivity gathers and image volumes from seismic
data surveys. CRAM is a multiarrival migration that uses the whole wave field within a controlled aperture.
Unlike conventional ray-based imaging methods, the ray tracing is performed from image points up to the
surface, forming a system for mapping the recorded surface seismic data into the local angle domain
(LAD) at the image points. The procedure is based on a uniform illumination at the image points from all
directions, ensuring that all arrivals are taken into account, while amplitudes and phases are preserved.
Benefits of the CRAM migration include:
• Improved visibility: CRAM is specifically designed for detailed velocity-model determination, for
target-oriented high-resolution reservoir imaging, for AVA (accurate amplitude versus angle) and
reservoir property extraction and for imaging data recorded in areas with complex structures and

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 velocity. The migration supports isotropic and anisotropic models and can be performed using all
types of marine and land data sets, including OBC-OBS.

• Customizable solution: The migration is extremely versatile and can be adapted to any
exploration objective. It can be used for full-volume imaging with full apertures and on clusters with
massive amount of nodes. It will also be adapted (in future releases) to run over target areas with
a model-driven aperture, for fast turnaround and for extremely high-resolution results.

• More confidence: The migration is driven by Paradigm industry-leading velocity model-building

solutions (GeoDepth and the GOCAD Suite of applications). CRAM operates in the angle domain,
ensuring confidence in results when using the seismic signature as a direct hydrocarbon indicator.

• Improved success: You can improve exploration and development success by using seismic
data with larger offsets and wider azimuths. CRAM has all the flexibility of the Kirchhoff imaging
solution as well as the main imaging benefits (for example, multiarrival) of the full wave imaging
solutions.

The SEGEAGD salt model survey was used as input and processed during these 3D migration tests. The
salt model seismic and velocity data was registered and stored into Paradigm Name Service (PNS).

PNS is a key component of the Paradigm software infrastructure for providing data access and control.
Each migration was run with and without using IBM SONAS or the Storwize V7000 Unified file systems.
Runtimes for both the sets of jobs were about the same.

Some additional runs were made using the tmp and scratch files stored locally on the compute server
compared to storing all data including tmp and scratch files on SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified. Again,
there was no noticeable difference in run times for local disks or tmp and scratch files.

This set of tests further shows that users can increase price and performance by configuring multiple
SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified file systems when running the Paradigms Epos software. One file
system was used for the high-performance tmp and scratch files, and the main file system was used for
PNS-based storage. This basically removes the requirement for local storage on each compute node
when running the application. Additional tests were required to confirm the tmp and scratch file results on
large clusters; however, a configuration consisting of dual file systems might result in a considerable cost
benefit and performance boost for clusters with hundreds or thousands of nodes.

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Summary
Paradigm Epos empowers geoscientists and engineers from multiple disciplines to share data,
collaborate on problem solving and interact in a common visualization environment for more effective
decision making.

As improvements in HPC infrastructure, such as general-purpose computing on graphics processing units

(GPGPU) computing, become more usable in upstream-seismic processing, new imaging techniques
become increasingly main stream for everyday seismic imaging. As new algorithms, such as TTI RTM
and new seismic data-acquisition techniques allow higher-fidelity prestack seismic data, exploration
companies are requiring more capacity, performance and reliability from their HPC storage environment.
The massive parallel computing that energy exploration uses today requires a storage infrastructure that
can easily scale with the compute resources needed to find the increasingly deeper water offshore
hydrocarbon reservoirs. IBM SONAS or the Storwize V7000 Unified storage system and the Paradigm
Epos integrated seismic-processing solution provide a scalable storage and data-management system
that satisfies the data-intensive workloads needed for the HPC seismic-processing environments found in
energy exploration.

IBM SONAS, Storwize V7000 Unified and Paradigm Epos 4 can provide the performance, scalability and
functions you need for seismic-processing requirements. This tested solution from IBM and Paradigm
unlocks the trapped value of seismic data assets to help your organization manage acquired seismic
content. The agile, flexible and scalable solution delivers the performance, capacity and information-
lifecycle management capabilities built into the IBM solutions along with the Paradigm Epos
infrastructure.

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Appendix A: Glossary
• IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) is built on IBM high-performance computing
experience, and based upon IBM General Parallel File System (IBM GPFS™), scale out network-
attached storage (NAS) solution, and provides the performance, clustered scalability, high
availability and functions that are essential to meet strategic big data and cloud-storage
requirements.

• IBM Storwize V7000 Unified is a virtualized storage system that is designed to consolidate block
and file workloads into a single storage system for simplicity of management, reduced cost, highly
scalable capacity, performance and high availability. IBM Storwize V7000 Unified Storage also
offers improved efficiency and flexibility through built-in solid state drive (SSD) optimization, thin
provisioning and nondisruptive migration of data from existing storage. The system can virtualize
and reuse existing disk systems that offer a greater potential return on investment.

• Paradigm Epos 4 is among the most advanced digital platforms in the industry for dynamic,
configurable, network-based data management, offering enterprise-wide, secure data access, with
optimal usage of network bandwidth. The Paradigm Epos Data management and interoperability
system presents a new approach, an agile, distributed database that removes the constraints and
data duplication requirements of legacy systems.

• Paradigm Name Service (PNS) provides the ability for users to create and access seismic
projects for use within the Epos software.

• Epos services provide application-level access to seismic data, utility files, well data and other
resources within the software and processing environment.

• Epos applications provide end-to-end seismic processing tasks, which includes 3D prestack
seismic-imaging applications.

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Appendix B: Materials used in the lab setup

Infrastructure
Vendor Quantity Details
component

IBM System x® 3650 M3

Server IBM 1
Intel® Xeon processor X5650 2.67 GHz
Memory: 128 GB in the cluster

IBM SONAS
1
Management node – 1
Interface nodes – 6
Storage nodes – 2
Nearline SAS and SAS drives

Storage IBM IBM Storwize V7000 Unified

1
ibm.com/systems/storage/disk/storwize_v7000/index.html

Network adapter Broadcom 2 Broadcom NetXtreme II 57710 10 GbE

(interface nodes)

Network adapter Broadcom 2 Broadcom NetXtreme II 57710 10 GbE

(VMware ESX
Servers)

Ethernet switch Cisco 1 Cisco catalyst 6509

IBM SONAS 1.3.0.0

IBM IBM Storwize V7000 Unified file module Version 1.3

Software
IBM IBM Storwize V7000 Unified control enclosure version 6.3

Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.6

Paradigm Paradigm Epos4

Table 2: Materials used in the lab setup

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Appendix C: Resources
The following websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in this paper:
• IBM Systems on PartnerWorld®
ibm.com/partnerworld/systems

• IBM Redbooks®
ibm.com/redbooks

• IBM Publications Center

www.elink.ibmlink.ibm.com/public/applications/publications/cgibin/pbi.cgi?CTY=US

• IBM SONAS on IBM PartnerWorld

ibm.com/partnerworld/systems/sonas
• IBM Storwize V7000 Unified Storage
ibm.com/systems/storage/disk/storwize_v7000
IBM documentation
• IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Concepts
ibm.com/redbooks/redpieces/abstracts/sg247874.html?Open
• IBM SONAS Introduction and Planning Guide (GA32-0716)
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_ipg.pdf

• IBM SONAS administration and user documentation

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/index.jsp

• IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Administrator's Guide (GA32-0713)

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_admin
_guide.pdf

• IBM SONAS User's Guide (GA32-0714)

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_user_
guide.pdf

• IBM SONAS Configuration Guide (GA32-0718)

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/configuration
_guide.pdf

• IBM SONAS Troubleshooting Guide (GA32-0717)

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_pd_gui
de.pdf

• IBM Storwize V7000 Unified 1.3.0 Information Center

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/storwize/unified_ic/index.jsp
• Implementing the IBM Storwize V7000 V6.3
www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247938.pdf

• Implementing the Storwize V7000 and the IBM System Storage SAN32B-E4 Encryption Switch
www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247977.pdf

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Paradigm documentation

• Technology enhances 3-D Modeling

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/Technology-Enables-3-D-
Modeling/ART-2011-07-Technology-Enhances-3-D-Modeling.pdf.aspx

• Distributed Data Management

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/Distributed-Data-
Management/ART-2011-06-Distributed-Data-Management.pdf.aspx

• GPUs prove their worth in seismic interpretation

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/GPUs-Prove-their-Worth-in-
Seismic-Interpretation/ART-2011-05-GPUs-prove-their-worth.pdf.aspx

• Local and Global Imaging Solutions

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/Local-and-Global-Imaging-
Solutions/2011-06-05-Local-and-Global-Imaging-Solutions.pdf.aspx

• Should you replicate databases locally?

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/Should-You-Replicate-
Databases-Locally-/ART-2011-4-5-Should-you-replicate-databases-locally.pdf.aspx

• A new method of volume rendering applied to a seismic dataset of the Barnett shale
www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/A-New-Method-of-Volume-
Rendering-Applied-to-a-Seis/ART-2011-3-A-new-method-of-volume-rendering-applied-to-a-
seismic-dataset-of-the-Barnett-shale.pdf.aspx

• Data management challenges in the prestack era

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Articles---Papers/Data-Management-Challenges-
in-the-Pre-Stack-Era/ART-2011-1-FB-data-management.pdf.aspx

• Paradigm Data Management

www.pdgm.com/getattachment/Resources-(2)/Brochures/Data-Management/Data-
Management_lowres_hybrid2.pdf.aspx

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About the authors
Udayasuryan Kodoly is a storage technology specialist within the IBM Systems and Technology Group
(ISV Enablement) organization. Uday has several years of experience -n designing, architecting storage
solutions and developing solution best practices on various NAS and SAN appliance data-protection
(backup) solutions. Uday is an expert on virtualization technologies and the virtual-machine data
protection strategies. Presently, Uday is working to enable various ISV backup, disaster recovery and
virtualization solutions for IBM SONAS and IBM Storwize V7000 systems.

You can reach Uday at uakodoly@us.ibm.com.

Billy Robinson is a senior software engineer and technical consultant within the IBM Systems and
Technology Group. Billy has worked extensively with solution providers and IBM customers who develop
and use seismic-processing software. He is proficient at parallelization and optimization of seismic codes
on UNIX® and Linux based clusters and servers. Billy has been working with IBM for 24 years. Prior to
joining IBM, he worked in the petroleum industry for 11 years (with Phillips Petroleum and Standard Oil
Production Company).

You can reach Billy at brrobins@us.ibm.com.

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