Sun Microsystems Middle East & North Africa today announced that Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO), part of the ADNOC Group, has invested in Sun technology to create a faster and more effective grid computing environment to run its reservoir simulation software. ADCO has invested in an integrated, low-cost, highly scalable 128-processor cluster utilising Sun's V60x x86 servers with Sun Control Station cluster management software. The new Sun infrastructure enables ADCO to run very large simulation models faster than ever before, which is a key element of producing its more than 2 million barrels of crude oil per day across 1200 production wells. 'The new system from Sun provides our entire team with the most up-to-date information on all aspects of our oil reserves and operations,' said Masoud Said Al Mughairy, information technology and information systems co-ordinator, ADCO. 'The Sun cluster has enabled ADCO staff access to vital business information three times faster than before.' 'It's 32-bit platform now, but we plan to move to 64-bit next year, once the application and technology mature,' adds Al Mughairy. The Sun computer grid processes all of ADCO's complex equations and data at high speed. The processed information is then fed to the ECLIPSE reservoir simulation software from Schlumberger Information Solutions. The entire process has been made more efficient thanks to the massive processing power supplied by Sun's x86 cluster. With approximately 551 gigaflops of floating point power as gauged by the Linpack benchmarks, this would place the system amongst the top 500 supercomputing sites in the world. ADCO's migration to a Sun-based grid environment recognizes the stability, ease of implementation, and reduced cost of ownership that is offered. The project was implemented by Sun and its partner Middle East Data Systems (MDS). 'The sheer merit of the solution is the main reason why we opted for standard off-the-shelf processors and open standards like Linux as opposed to proprietary technology,' added Al Mughairy. Driving down the overall cost of the project was Sun's Linlithgow Manufacturing Facility in the UK. 'By pre-configuring and testing in the UK, ADCO was able to reduce the number of boxes shipped, reduce costs and get the hardware installed faster,' said John Foster, regional volume product sales manager, Sun Microsystems MENA. 'This service is what makes Sun an attractive option to large corporate customers in the Middle East,' said Foster. In the next few years, Sun expects more companies from the oil and gas sector, along with weather forecasting departments, to adopt cost-effective grid computing. x86-based clusters, ideal for mission critical organizations, are delivering greater reliability and scalability at a cost-effective price.