At the Microsoft TechEd in Los Angeles this month, the company announced that the next edition of its database application, SQL Server 2008, is to include complex event processing for real-time data streams. Hard on the heels of this announcement, OSIsoft unveiled plans to offer the new technology alongside flagship PI System real time database. PI System forms the core of many ‘digital oilfield’ initiatives—see for instance our report from the 2009 OSIsoft User Group on page 7.
Complex event processing (CEP) takes raw real time data feeds, performs correlations and other rule-based processes to output actionable information. ‘Low latency’ CEP means that the processing takes place in near real time. CEP was pioneered by MIT professor Michael Stonebraker through his StreamBase company. Traditional CEP applications are in the financial services arena for popular activities such as programmed stock trading.
OSIsoft product manager Laurent Garrigues told Oil IT Journal how CEP would benefit upstream users, ‘Raw production data is seldom suited for immediate use. Data needs to be QC’d and filtered—a perfect task for the PI-CEP engine. Quality rules can be implemented as a sequence of reusable logical blocks to support the overall cleansing and filtering process. Another use case is in information aggregation. The PI-CEP engine can be used to apply filtering and business rules in real time across multiple producing wells and under dynamically changing conditions. CEP can be used to provide production allocation information or to manage alarms, finding patterns in sudden, massive bursts of data generated by an abnormal situation. The low latency of the CEP engine means that information can be separated from noise in time to take meaningful action.’
Monitoring and maintenance of rotating equipment such as pumps and compressors will also benefit from the expressiveness of the CEP query language, making it easy to filter, sort and rank equipment based on operating data.
Ted Kummert, senior VP at Microsoft’s business platform division, added, ‘We chose to collaborate with OSIsoft because of its experience in creating real-time event-driven infrastructures. We are already engaged with customers who are interested in the benefits of this new platform.’
Commercial CEP-enabled editions of SQL Server are expected to be released in 2010. The close relationship between OSIsoft and Microsoft will make possible early adoption of the new CEP technology when it is made available next year. Read our interview with OSIsoft’s VP marketing, Jon Peterson on page 2 of this issue for a peek at what CEP will bring to OSIsoft’s technology line-up. More from www.osisoft.com.
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