Panasas High-Performance Data Storage Supports Environmentally Responsible Energy Exploration

Panasas® has released a case study featuring the marine survey activities of Panasas customer Magseis Fairfield, a Norway-based geophysics firm that provides ocean bottom seismic acquisition services for exploration and production (E&P) companies.

Magseis Fairfield deploys the Panasas ActiveStor® appliance for remote storage support in rugged off-shore environments around the world, where it acquires and stores large amounts of seismic 3D and 4D data used to create highly accurate reservoir models that help reduce the risk of drilling errors, avoid unnecessary disruption of natural sites, and streamline resource extraction.

Magseis Fairfield utilizes several generations of Panasas storage technology for offshore projects. Over the years, data requirements have grown from 250 terabytes (TB) per vessel to as much as 600TB. Combined, Panasas provides 1.6 petabytes (PB) of storage that supports a wide range of projects in regions including the Gulf of Mexico, the Red Sea, North Sea, West Africa, Caribbean, and South America. With its ease of installation, reliability, adaptability and low-touch management, ActiveStor is uniquely positioned to deal with the challenges of an offshore storage deployment.

“Part of the reason we’ve relied on Panasas for so long is that the solution and support they provide give us peace of mind,” explains Janie Garcia, manager of onboard processing at Magseis Fairfield. “Our storage solution must be robust enough to survive the offshore environment. The system is being accessed 24 hours a day and we require the flexibility to move equipment from one vessel to another and from one country to another. The storage system must be able to tolerate this type of constant handling. Even when we bring on additional data, Panasas still performs exactly as we would expect. We can count on the solution to handle everything we can throw at it. That helps us meet our deadlines and ensure that clients get the information they need.”

A single offshore acquisition vessel consists of 80 to 100 personnel – including navigators, geophysicists, and marine mammal observers. The geoscientists responsible for data collection need a highly reliable, low-touch storage solution since there is no dedicated IT staff on the vessel. ActiveStor features an intuitive, graphical management interface so even nontechnical personnel can perform maintenance and solve problems. In addition, Panasas’ 24-hour-a-day remote support ensures that an expert is always available should geoscientists need help troubleshooting.

“As an innovator in the seismic market, Magseis Fairfield is constantly looking for ways to optimize data acquisition operations and storage plays a key role in this effort,” said Jim Donovan, chief sales and marketing officer of Panasas. “Whether it’s supporting the acquisition of ever-increasing amounts of data or ensuring that consistently high performance is delivered, regardless of application, workload or number of users, crews using Panasas ActiveStor know they have the robust, reliable storage equipment they need to get the job done.”

To find out more about Magseis Fairfield’s advanced ocean-bottom node (OBN) technology and their groundbreaking patented Z node design for the safe and efficient acquisition of high-quality data, read the full case study here.

For more information on how ActiveStor can accelerate your time to business results, click here.