We are seeing a bigger emphasis on integrating data across multiple engineering disciplines and a big need for better tools to find data.  As we heard at Global Energy Forum, Cyber Security is hot topic in terms of both adoption and overall importance.

For more info on Big Data, take a look at this link.

http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/industry/oil-gas/events/default.aspx#fbid=7QDufJJpJqu

A new component of Sql Server 2008 R2 called StreamInsight can help fill this need.  Below is a diagram showing the architecture of StreamInsight.  

Some of the highlights of StreamInsight are:

• Ability to have hundreds of thousands of datapoints each second.\
• Ability to define events using the mathmatical function based language F#
• Adapter based framework making it easy to connect to Event sources and Targets

StreamInsight and Complex Event Processing is also a big component of the Microsoft Oil and Gas Reference Architecture.   I see this technology as the glue that will start powering a Digital Oilfield environment where users can spend less time identifying issues in the field along and more time optimizing production.  Over the next few weeks, I am going to try and show you some examples of this architecture in action.  Stay tuned!

Chris Van Dyke

cvandyke@microsoft.com

As we begin the second decade of this millennium, the technology has evolved to meet the daunting challenges of oil and gas business and operations. Today, it is commonplace to use technology that as little as 15 years ago was considered by many to be science fiction. As an industry, we’ve made great strides in using the technology to develop solutions, and our collective knowledge about how to transform the industry to meet the twenty-first century global energy demand continues to grow.

Some of the key technological advances include:

·         Robust, reliable communication and collaboration technology embedded right into technical apps and enabling secure information flow across all boundaries—silos within an enterprise and partners outside the enterprise.

·         Fast, reliable and secure access to structured and unstructured information across an enterprise and externally with partners with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

·         Continually evolving operating systems that maximize hardware capabilities, increase security, and improve performance and productivity—Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The oil and gas industry is quickly realizing their benefits.

·         Innovative application of new technology, such as Landmark’s use of state-of-the-art interactive visualization tools from Microsoft’s Xbox® gaming console in its new GeoGraphix Discovery 3D geographic modeling application.

·         Affordable and accessible high-performance computing that can be easily integrated with standard oil and gas workflows.

·         The emergence of cloud computing—remote centers for storing and accessing data and applications using the Internet—which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed in his address at our Global Energy Forum in Houston. See previous post

At Microsoft, our oil and gas team continues to develop our expertise by engaging with our partners and industry organizations to help solve industry-wide challenges—for example, by using our technology and expertise to help with the development and adoption of upstream data exchange standards, which are crucial for seamless information flow that will improve operational efficiency. See previous post

What do you see happening next? Are we on the right track? We want to hear from you. Post a quick comment now.

We’re nearly 10 years into the “digital oilfield” (DOF), but, as an industry, we’ve yet to realize the productivity gains that DOF promised—in large part because of data incompatibility among the various technologies, apps, and systems.

The level of seamless information flow among all of these apps and systems correlates directly with the level of operational efficiency. Improved data flow means we can gain deeper technical and business insights faster, which means better decisions faster—decisions that can have a real impact on the bottom line. 

Like many companies, we at Microsoft believe data exchange standards are crucial to solving this data traffic jam. Open standards such as Energistics’ Well Information Transfer Standard Markup Language (WITSML) are demonstrating the gains in efficiency that can be made when data flows seamlessly.

Few people will argue against the benefit of standards. But most people will agree that the initial adoption and implementation of standards can be challenging.

To support and facilitate standards adoption and implementation, Microsoft has become a member of Energistics, the upstream oil and gas standards consortium (www.energistics.org).

Our strategy is to deliver products that support open standards, right out of the box. This approach lowers adoption hurdles, increases usage, and enables oil and gas industry customers to better execute their strategies for E&P information sharing and business process integration.

We’ve also participated directly in the standards development process by collaborating with Energistics and Shell to implement a PRODML proof-of-concept using Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform.

Post a comment. Tell us about your experience with data standards.

But the fact is businesses know the value that Microsoft brings in terms of ease of use, productivity and innovation for enterprise-wide solutions. And though Windows 7 has only recently been released, oil and gas companies are already realizing the benefits.

Landmark capitalizes on Windows 7 and Xbox® gaming technology

In October, Landmark released GeoGraphix Discovery 3D, a tool for developing geologic interpretations, which increases ease of use and interactivity by incorporating state-of-the-art interactive visualization tools from Microsoft’s Xbox® gaming console combined with the 64-bit capabilities and performance of the new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.  See previous post.

Statoil among the First

Statoil has been piloting Windows 7 and has plans for a major company-wide deployment that also includes Windows Server 2008 R2.

Petter Wersland, lead architect at Statoil and an employee since 1991, explained in a recent interview, “We’re moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 and are looking forward to using the new functionality introduced in Windows 7.”

Wersland explains, “With Windows 7 we’re seeing three really great benefits: enhanced IT security, faster file access for traveling users within the company, and improved remote connectivity from Internet.”

“We’re also hearing from employees that Windows 7 just makes their PCs snappier and more responsive– especially for laptop users. Employees who are already on Windows 7 are telling us that it is easier to move between meetings and start and stop laptops.”

Read the entire interview.

DeepOcean Also Dives In

DeepOcean, a subsea services and construction support firm headquartered in Norway, has a solid history of early adoption of new versions of Windows. In 2000, the company was among the first in the industry to implement the Windows platform for its onshore operations and offshore data processing.

The company is now migrating to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, upgrades that will help enhance security for its portable computers and address challenges with its virtual private network.

Let us hear from you. Have you used Windows 7 yet? Tell us what you think.

One of our Microsoft slogans is “People. The real energy in oil & gas.” This year at our 7^th annual Global Energy Forum (GEF) in Houston, customers, partners, and colleagues experienced that real energy first hand.

With a record turnout and an event culminating in a presentation from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the place and the people were buzzing---cautiously optimistic about growing confidence in the economy and genuinely enthusiastic about the possibilities of our industry and the types of cutting-edge solutions that Microsoft and our partners are making a reality.

In his address, Ballmer pointed out that he is not an oil and gas industry expert, but thinks of himself as an IT expert with “opinions” on the subject.

In his discussions with senior corporate leaders, Ballmer found that many were “completely unafraid to embrace new technologies.” These discussions were supported by results from a recently released study (by Microsoft and Accenture) that show 73 percent of the oil and gas professionals polled said that social media tools, such as blogging or Facebook, helped them complete projects on time and within budget—which was up 40 percent from a previous year’s study. (See an overview of the study results.) 

The opportunity for both workers and businesses from improved collaboration through social media tools is huge. The study found that the biggest value was realized in connecting globally dispersed E&P workers and transferring knowledge to solve complex technical problems. Other study results include time saving, significant productivity gains, reduced travel, and increased work flexibility.

 “The cloud is the future.”

Ballmer also thinks that oil and gas industry businesses will move to “cloud computing”—remote centers for storing and accessing data and applications using the Internet, which are designed to save businesses money, in part by reducing the need to build major onsite computing infrastructure.

The cloud approach is ideal for complex E&P operations, with its multi-vendor, multi-partner environment and huge volumes of data that require a combination of strict security and easy sharing with appropriate partners. The cloud facilitates secure, reliable access by the right partners to the right data.

Ballmer explained that businesses now have the power of choice ranging from traditional data centers, virtualized data centers to private and public clouds, which enable the type of expansive yet secure collaboration required in oil and gas.

In fact, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner iStore has now deployed PetroTrek Online, its Digital Oilfield suite of applications, on Microsoft Windows Azure Platform, an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted through Microsoft data centers. So it appears that the future is here.

What do you think? Is the future in the cloud? Post your thoughts here now.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6829767.html