Microsoft officially unveiled its Upstream Oil & Gas Reference Architecture (OGRA—OITJ December 2009) at CERA Week this month and followed up with a whitepaper*. The document, strong on vision and light on details, describes a reference ‘architecutre’ (sic) that is to ‘enable better integration of upstream applications through the composition of common application components.’ ‘Early adopter’ Landmark, hitherto something of a Java/Linux shop, heralded the OGRA claiming that its DecisionSpace for Production leverages OGRA. Schlumberger was conspicuously absent from the announcement.
OGRA is currently at a very early stage of development but an idea of its future shape can be had from an examination of the slightly more mature utilities architecture, SERA (OITJ Dec 09). SERA leverages a comprehensive Microsoft stack including BizTalk for automation and ‘orchestration.’ BizTalk has had a checkered history in the upstream. Total has successfully used the middleware for oil field monitoring (OITJ Nov 08). Elsewhere, ExxonMobil’s attempt to leverage BizTalk in its upstream enterprise architecture failed spectacularly. A source who did not want to be named told Oil IT Journal. ‘We lost two years!’ More from Microsoft.com/oilandgas.
* links/1003_2.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.