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X-ISS completes data centre relocation

eXcellence in IS Solutions (X-ISS), a provider of High Performance Computing and Big Data solutions, successfully completed a relocation and expansion project of a major HPC data center under a tight deadline with 99.97 percent uptime.

The client, ION GX Technology (GXT), is a leader in providing advanced seismic data processing and visualization services to oil and gas clients through a series of worldwide geophysical centers. The computing power that drives these processing services comes from a large internal cloud-based HPC data center hub in Houston with more than 300 racks of densely populated compute and storage devices.

When GXT contracted X-ISS to oversee a relocation and expansion of its data center, the project had to be carried out with negligible downtime in a strict six-month time window. X-ISS already had a long standing relationship with GXT, supporting their network, xCAT cluster manager, and server virtualization environment under a ManagedHPC services agreement. 

“GXT relies on X-ISS for much of its HPC design and operational support work worldwide,” said Bill Menger, Director of HPC at GXT.

Thanks to its familiarity with GXT’s environment and its technical depth, X-ISS was a logical choice for this project.

“The size of the data center combined with the tight window made this project a challenge,” said Deepak Khosla, President of X-ISS. “Our extensive planning, ability to work closely with GXT and adjust work schedules to see tasks through to completion were a critical to the success of this project.”

X-ISS designed and implemented the extension of GXT’s network between the old and new data centers utilizing Arista network switches. This allowed jobs to run without performance impact regardless of whether the CPUs and storage were physically in the same building, resulting in an impressive 99.97 percent uptime during the entire six-month move.

“X-ISS was instrumental in helping plan the move, especially in the area of keeping the infrastructure and network operational while transferring services,” said Menger. “Without the X-ISS staff supporting the GXT personnel daily for the six-month operation, we would have been forced to curtail operations.”

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