Modern storage architectures, mass storage systems, their components and their application in geophysics
G.N. Kolafa · First Break · 2003
Synergy is a common goal in theory and practice within an E&P organization. Due to the vast quantities of data acquired from varied disciplines and the need to assess and analyse this information in line with company targets of quality, time and cost, ‘Information Management’ has become a key issue in achieving these targets and adequate levels of synergy. Geoscientists are confronted daily with managing these data, so that (1) the data do not become lost or ignored and (2) they are not insufficiently analysed or applied for their purpose. This has produced a call for new tools and systems to organize and retrieve these data more quickly and efficiently in order to improve processing, and facilitate decision making. Capacity has also become of paramount importance in the light of the amount of existing data to be incorporated into such systems and, of course, with 3D seismic being common and the increase in 4D seismic, present and future rates of data generation will continue to increase and will have to be coped with. Recent product developments have made it possible to assemble highly integrated systems that address the issues above and provide the right level of flexibility to accomplish high levels of synergy in a very practical form. These particular products and systems will be discussed in this article. The systems are commonly known as Mass Storage Systems or Near-Line Storage and consist of various types of hardware and software for managing uniform or mixed media. Additionally, there are systems for organizing and controlling the information, as well as monitoring media degradation and implementing protective measures against data loss that might result. The development of NAS (Network Attached Storage) and SAN (Storage Area Network) products have brought new considerations into the overall architecture. It is apparent that there has been difficulty integrating these technologies into operations for different reasons and it is hoped that the discussion here will provide some insight and guidance regarding these systems.