Energy Giant Hess Explores Benefits of Virtualization, NVIDIA SLI Multi OS Technology on HP Workstations

Energy Giant Hess Explores Benefits of Virtualization, NVIDIA SLI Multi OS Technology on HP Workstations

SEG 2009, HOUSTON -Oct. 26, 2009- NVIDIA announced today that Hess Corp., a leading global independent energy company, is using HP Z800 workstations outfitted with NVIDIA® Quadro® graphics processing units (GPUs) and NVIDIA SLI® Multi-OS technology to investigate reducing IT costs while increasing productivity for geosciences professionals.

Leveraging virtualization technologies from NVIDIA, Parallels and others, the HP Z800 workstation delivers the speed and expandability that oil and gas professionals can fully utilize to tackle their biggest challenges.

"In our constantly challenging and highly competitive business environment, cost-effective, flexible, powerful IT solutions are critically important," said Jeff Davis, manager, Technical Computing, at Hess. "We're examining how the HP Z800 workstation, bolstered by the technologies incorporated in it from NVIDIA, can help us with our ongoing exploration efforts."

NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS enables Hess to run both Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux simultaneously on a single workstation.

Using Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d) hardware acceleration, SLI Multi-OS allows Hess to directly assign NVIDIA Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs) to virtual machines- a breakthrough capability for graphics-intensive applications.

Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme is the first high-end workstation virtualization solution to offer users near-native performance for graphics-intensive applications. The product leverages the key virtualization technologies enabled by NVIDIA and Intel to deliver highly performing virtual machines for the most demanding visualization applications.

"Instead of running applications on different machines, and moving data back and forth over the network, SLI Multi-OS radically streamlines users' workflows and instantly enhances productivity," said Jeff Brown, general manager, NVIDIA Professional Solutions Group. "We believe Hess' use of fully virtualized workstations will makes their employees more efficient, while lowering the total cost of ownership."

HP and NVIDIA will be demonstrating the HP Z800 workstation powered by Quadro professional graphics solutions and SLI Multi-OS technology, Intel VT-d and Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme, at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists International Exposition (SEG 2009) at the George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, TX, in the HP booth, #631, October 26th through 29th.

The SLI Multi-OS capability is available on the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800, Quadro FX 4800, and Quadro FX 5800 graphics solutions and supports selected combinations of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux operating systems. For more information on SLI Multi-OS, please visit: www.nvidia.com/object/sli_multi_os.html

For more information on NVIDIA Quadro solutions, please visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro.


About NVIDIA

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from portable media players to notebooks to workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. Fortune magazine has ranked NVIDIA #1 in innovation in the semiconductor industry for two years in a row. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.

Last updated: Apr 7, 2020 at 12:00 pm CDT