2015

HARDWARE &
OPERATING SYSTEM
RECOMMENDATIONS

15.CMG.11
CONTENTS

Important Notice ...................................................................................................................................... 2

Hyper-Threading Recommendation ........................................................................................................... 2

System Recommendations ......................................................................................................................... 3

Recommended Configuration for 2-Socket Workstation ........................................................................... 3
Recommended Configuration for 2-Socket Server ................................................................................... 4
Recommended Configuration for 4-Socket Server ................................................................................... 5

Model Centric Recommendations ............................................................................................................... 6

Minimum Hardware or Laptop ................................................................................................................... 6
Recommended Hardware.......................................................................................................................... 6
Recommended Hardware for Simulation of Models Greater than 250,000 Grid Blocks ........................... 6
Recommended Hardware for Visualization of Models Greater than 2,000,000 Grid Blocks .................... 7
Technical Assistance ................................................................................................................................. 7

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

Important Notice
†
CMG no longer tests, ships or supports software releases on the Windows XP operating system.
Customers using Windows XP are recommended to use the 2014 release or older.

In addition, CMG only supports 64-bit operating systems and hardware; customers using 32-bit systems
should use the 2012 release or older.

Hyper-Threading Recommendation

For the time being, we advise customers turn off hyper-threading on their compute nodes for performance
reasons. Running with hyper-threading on can result in as much as a 30% to 40% performance
degradation. Usually the setting is found in the Systems BIOS and needs to be set before the system
boots into the Operating System. Please consult your IT department for further guidance.

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

System Recommendations

Recommended Configuration for 2-Socket Workstation

Using Intel† “Haswell” Architecture

RECOMMENDATION CMG IS PURCHASING

Number of 2 Sockets 2 Sockets: workstations for CST
Sockets engineers
†
Processor Dual 10-Core Xeon E5-2687W v3, 3.1 10-cores per Socket
Ghz, 25M, 9.6GT/s, Turbo+ (20 cores*
total)

Memory 32 GB – 256 GB RDIMM ECC DDR4 64 GB

Memory, 2133Mhz MHz
All four memory channels populated for
maximum memory performance
†
Graphics Card 2.5 GB NVIDIA Quadro 5000 – 8GB 8GB NVIDIA Quadro K5000
NVIDIA Quadro K5000

Disk Drive 256 SSD drive or 250 GB SATA drive 256 GB SSD Drive for OS and 2TB
for OS (C:), 500 GB – 1 TB SATA drive SATA drive for Data
for Data (D:)

Operating Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

System

* May require Parallel tokens from CMG to use all the cores in the system.

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

Recommended Configuration for 2-Socket Server
Using Intel “Haswell” Architecture

RECOMMENDATION CMG IS PURCHASING

Number of 2 Sockets 2 Sockets: servers for CMG Software as
Sockets a Service (SaaS), CMG data center and
compute clusters

Processor Dual 8-Core Xeon E5-2667 v3, 3.2 Ghz, Highest frequency, 8-cores per Socket
20M, 9.6GT/s, Turbo+ (16 cores* total)
Dual 14-Core Xeon E5-2697 v3, 2.6
Lower frequency, 14-cores per Socket
Ghz, 35M, 9.6GT/s, Turbo+ (28 cores*
total)

Memory 32 GB – 256 GB RDIMM ECC DDR4 128 GB – 256GB

Memory, 2133MT/s
- All four memory channels populated for
maximum memory performance

Graphics Card Not Applicable; Servers not to be used

for Visualization
Most Servers have a built in Video Card
on Motherboard and are not
configurable

Disk Drive Discuss speed and capacity

requirements with vendor

Operating Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard or Windows Server 2012 R2 Std

System Server 2008 R2 Enterprise depending
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 (64-bit)
upon amount of Memory (Std. supports
up to 32GB, Ent. supports up to 2 TB)
† †
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 (64-bit)

* May require Parallel tokens from CMG to use all the cores in the system.

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

Recommended Configuration for 4-Socket Server
Using Intel† “Ivy Bridge” Architecture

RECOMMENDATION CMG IS PURCHASING

Number of 4 Sockets 4 Sockets: For large models, shortest
Sockets runtimes; CMG Software as a Service
(SaaS) etc.

Processor 4x 15-core E7-4890 v2, 2.80 GHz, Highest frequency, 15-cores per socket
37.5M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI Turbo
(60 cores* total)

Memory 128 GB – 1,024 GB RDIMM Memory, 512 GB – 1,024 GB

1600 Mhz
- All Four memory channels populated
for maximum memory performance

Graphics Card Not Applicable; Servers not to be used

for Visualization
Most Servers have a built in Video Card
on Motherboard and are not
configurable

Disk Drive Discuss speed and capacity

requirements with vendor

Operating Windows Server 2012 R2 Std Windows Server 2012 R2 Std

System
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 (64-bit) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 (64-bit)

* May require Parallel tokens from CMG to use all the cores in the system.

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

Model Centric Recommendations

Minimum Hardware or Laptop

(a) Small/Medium Black Oil less than 250,000 blocks and/or WinProp™
•
† †
Intel Xeon- or equivalent AMD -based PC, 4 GB RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista
† †
Business or Windows 7 64-bit versions, OpenGL -capable video card.

Recommended Hardware
• See previous section for the recommended configuration for a 2-socket workstation

Recommended Hardware for Simulation of Models Greater than 250,000

Grid Blocks
(a) IMEX™: up to 500,000 blocks
GEM™: up to 250,000 blocks
STARS™: up to 250,000 blocks
• 2 quad-core Intel Xeon 5520 or better or single Xeon E5-1620 v2 or better with Windows XP
x64, Windows 7 x64, or Red Hat Linux 6 update 2 for x86_64
• 16 GB RAM or more

(b) IMEX: 500,000 to 2,000,000 blocks

GEM: 250,000 to 1,000,000 blocks
STARS: 250,000 to 1,000,000 blocks
• 2 six-core Intel Xeon 5620 or better or single Xeon E5-1660 v2 or better with Windows XP
x64, Windows 7 x64, or Red Hat Linux 6 update 3 x86_64
• 32 GB RAM or more

(c) IMEX: 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 blocks

GEM: 1,000,000 to 2,500,000 blocks
STARS: 1,000,000 to 2,500,000 blocks
• 2 eight-core Intel Xeon E5-2680 or 2 Xeon E5-2667 v2 with Windows XP x64, Windows 7
x64, or Red Hat Linux 6 update 3 for x86_64
• 64 GB RAM or more

(d) IMEX: More than 5,000,000 blocks

GEM: More than 2,500,000 blocks
STARS: More than 2,500,000 blocks
• 2 twelve-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 with Windows 2012 R2 or RHEL 6.5 for x86_64
• 4 fifteen-core Intel Xeon E7-4890 v2 with Windows 2012 R2 or RHEL 6.5 for x86_64
• 128 GB RAM or more

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

Recommended Hardware for Visualization of Models Greater than
2,000,000 Grid Blocks
Windows XP x64 or Windows 7 x64
(a) Up to 2,000,000 blocks
• OpenGL video card such as NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 or Quadro 2000
• 12 GB RAM or more
(b) 2,000,000 to 8,000,000 blocks
• OpenGL video card such as NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 or Quadro 4000 or Quadro 5000 for up
to 10,000,000 blocks
• 16 GB RAM or more
(c) More than 8,000,000 blocks
• OpenGL video card such as NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 or Quadro FX 6000
• 24 GB RAM or more

NOTE: The RAM and core requirements outlined in this document are approximate, since they are
heavily dependent on the properties of the dataset being used:
• Number of components
• Percentage of fully implicit cells
• Whether dual porosity or dual permeability options are used and if so, which ones
• Percentage of grid blocks that are active
• Grid aspect ratio.

Technical Assistance
If you require technical assistance, or have specific questions about these hardware and operating
system recommendations which are not discussed here, please contact CMG at:
Email: support@cmgl.ca
Phone: +1.403.531.1300

CMG Hardware & Operating System Recommendations June 2015

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† Other company, product, and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. 15-CMG-11