"Because we deal with huge data volumes from the field and our oil and gas clients, ensuring a proper flow of information between systems is our biggest challenge", stated Rizwan Toor, Tricon's IT director. "Replacing our legacy switches with Force10 Networks has helped us answer this challenge while providing us with a cost-effective solution that ensures optimal productivity today, while providing the scalability we need to enter new markets and offer new services in the future."

Seismic imaging creates enormous data volumes that range from 500 Gigabyte to several Terabyte (TB) single file sizes and projects as big as 4-5 TB to as much as 24 TB in size. Processing raw data and then moving scores of these large files can potentially create bottlenecks within the network, causing geoscientists, seismic engineers and others to wait long periods of time to access this critical data.

Tricon deployed one Force10 C300 switch at each of their Houston and Denver data centers. With up to 384 line-rate 10/100/1000Base-T ports per device, coupled with 5 microsecond switching latency under full load for 64 byte frames, the chassis-based switches provided the port density and performance Tricon required. With nearly 1,000 nodes in Houston and more than 250 nodes in Denver, Tricon leverages the switch's passive copper backplane capacity of more than 1.5 Terabits per second and more than 950 Megabits per second of L2/L3 packet forwarding capacity. To bring Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and core-like resiliency to their network edge, Tricon also deployed two S50 access switches in both data centres.

The Force10 Operating System (FTOS), available across its switch/router line, provides stability and performance advantages in part by separating memory allocation and process scheduling. Administrators, using an industry-standard interface, can easily manage both the C-Series and S-Series without significant retraining. To set up and monitor ongoing network traffic statistics, Tricon deployed the optional VirtualView, a suite of features within FTOS that provides the company with pinpointed, real-time management of business-critical data performance.

"For seismic data processing service organizations, such as Tricon, their data is their corporate lifeblood", stated Stephen Garrison, vice president of marketing, Force10 Networks. "Their inability to efficiently and reliably process large amounts of data is not a software problem or a hardware problem - it's a corporate challenge that must be answered. Our C-Series and S-Series switches significantly raise the bar by delivering unmatched performance, density, scalability, and resiliency for mission critical networks."