Larry Bellamy described Mobil's approach to deploying a world-wide E&P computing solution using products from Landmark and GeoQuest at the inaugural meeting of the POSC South-Western group held during the SEG conference in Houston. Following extensive analysis of their requirements and the various vendor offerings, Mobil chose to base their solution on GeoQuest's Finder for the Master Data Store (MDS) together with the full suite of applications from Landmark including the Open Works Project Data Store (PDS). This contract will be worth some $63 million over three years, and mentions POSC compliance, although Bellamy states that he, like most of the rest of us, doesn't know exactly what that is. The solution is described in a three tiered structure, with the Finder MDS at the base, the Open Works PDS in the middle below the rest of the Landmark applications. The exception to this is the deployment of GeoQuest's Oil Field Manager (formerly Production Analyst) production reporting tool which runs directly from Finder. Recognizing that the application side of the solution may not necessarily represent the "best in class" - Mobil introduce the concept of "adequacy", with the further comment that "diversity is not necessarily good in application purchases". The project incorporates a large dose of business process re-engineering with workflow improvement consultancy being provided by Landmark as a part of their new service offering.
Interoperability
The two vendors then had their chance to describe the project from their standpoint, and in particular, to explain how interoperability between their different products lines was to be achieved through "POSC compliance whatever that might mean". John Sherman of Landmark spoke first and described how the project involved implementation at 14 locations world-wide, and involved the training of some 800 staff. Sherman explained that Open Works is migrating to "full POSC compliance" but with the qualifier that "it would be a good idea if this was defined". Currently every POSC implementation is a relational projection, but Sherman points out that the commercial projections are not "open" i.e. published.
via the DAE….
Describing the data flow from the MDS to the PDS, Sherman stated that this would be performed using the LightSIP Data Access and Exchange (see last month's PDM for extensive coverage of this technology). Data transfer is to be achieved with a "one-button" interface.
..or Geoshare?
The view from the other - GeoQuest - side of the fence was outlined by Howard Neal. No talk of LightSIP or the DAEX here, data transfer between the two environments is to be via our old friend Geoshare. Questioned on the differing presentations of the linkage, Neal re-affirmed that Geoshare was the data transfer mechanism adopted for the project and would remain so for the foreseeable future. Geoshare is also the vehicle for data transfer between Finder and GeoQuest's own PDS, GeoFrame. Both vendors drummed home their undying commitment to POSC standards - without, as before being able to clearly define what is at stake. David Archer, POSC's COO mused publicly as to the merits of compliance profiles - whereby a vendor might publish the Epicentre footprint of their data model, or publish metadata, or issue a compliance statement. This is all very good in so far as it goes, but it is a telling reflection on the development of POSC that, nearly 10 years down the road, compliance issues should be discussed in such detached terms. It is also a telling reflection on POSC's contribution to interoperability that the data transfer mechanism between these two "compliant" environments is Geoshare.
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