When Pioneer Natural Resources was looking for a next-generation approach to information access for E&P users, they knew that SOA and Web Services technologies would be key.
"We wanted to evaluate, test and pilot service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web Services to see where they fit for Pioneer," said Carol Tessier, Director of Engineering and Enterprise Solutions for Pioneer. "Web Services are working for other industries especially in the area of data integration. It's estimated by Gartner that by 2008 80% of portal tools will be Web Services-based. Our experience with the use of portals has been very positive but one issue we reoccurringly had was that each portlet needed data to be remapped. This slowed down our development process. So we looked for a way to provide data once and re-use it many times for portlets and applications. From that we came up with four specific "proof-of-concept" projects for Web Services."
One of those projects was a vision Pioneer calls OneMap, aimed at unified map-based access to all types of technical data for all types of users. Pioneer hired Schlumberger, whose DecisionPoint web workflow solution is a frequent destination for user queries, to develop OneMap as a web-based map portal using ESRI MapObjects IMS technology leveraging the DecisionPoint data access framework. "We didn't want to end up with a map access tool from each vendor. We had a goal to have a common tool with two faces: one for the general user where it was easy to spatially find and use data, and then a more complex tool for those whose job called for the greater mapping capabilities," Tessier said.
Two Steps to Success: New Data Repository, New Data Delivery
Making OneMap a reality required meeting several challenges, starting with the data foundation itself. Pioneer decided to make a change in how their master repository of well header and production data, both S&P Global and proprietary, would be hosted and maintained. Then, they would look to S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services, along with S&P Global Spatial Layers, to meet a number of goals for delivering S&P Global data via OneMap to support the standard reports and exports that the company's users have come to rely on.
"We first came to S&P Global about hosting our well data," Tessier said. "We had several goals; including lowering the hosting fee we were paying and improving data timeliness by an order of magnitude – moving from weeks between updates to daily updates. Plus, hosting is attractive because the monthly CDs are a pain to manage. The amount of data we deal with can bring a CD tower to its knees."
The S&P Global staff was very responsive, Tessier noted, and helped provide a smooth transition to the new environment. Via an Extranet connecting their Irving office servers to the S&P Global Hosting Center in Denver, Pioneer now uses the S&P Global data model, PIDM, as the basis for its master repository of well header and production information, combining both S&P Global and Pioneer's own proprietary data in one database.While the master repository is hosted in Denver, Pioneer maintains a spatial layers server in Irving as well. "We get nightly updates of ESRI ArcSDE layers from S&P Global to our server. So we always have the latest data from S&P Global - it's a really nice setup. Our goal is to get completely off CDs by the end of the year."
In a day and half using Enerdeq Web Services, we were able to create the links to define some 30 standard reports that replaced the CD-based reports. They work great, and are easy to maintain.
Carol Tessier,
Director of Engineering and Enterprise Solutions, Pioneer Natural Resources
The next area of focus was getting users access to the data in exactly the right formats for their needs. This is where, together, Pioneer and S&P Global identified a significant role for S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services.
Previously, users across the company were dependent on the monthly CDs from S&P Global for a wide range of standard reports. Eliminating the CDs meant re-thinking how to get the right well and production data to the right people on a timely basis.
S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services was a perfect match for these needs, designed from the ground up as off-the- shelf "middleware" that provides reports, exports and graphs of S&P Global well and production data via the Web. In this case, Pioneer wanted users to be able to select a well within OneMap and then select which report or export they wanted. The solution was to use the S&P Global Spatial Layers covering U.S. well and production data to give users a way to point to the well, and then use S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services to manage the "call" to the S&P Global server for the most up- to-date data for that well.
"In a day and half using S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services, we were able to create the links to define some 30 standard reports that replaced the CD-based reports," Tessier said. "They work great, and are easy to maintain. By comparison, some custom links we wrote years ago to transfer S&P Global data to our previous database took six or seven months to write."
An Easy Platform for Integrators
The S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services API proved to be straightforward for Schlumberger to implement within their DecisionPoint data access framework. Tessier is complimentary of the way S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services support staff and Schlumberger teamed up on the OneMap project.
"Getting the connection up? It was executed very quickly," she said. "Schlumberger worked effectively with the S&P Global team to implement the S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services – this was promising. Common data integration services should be shared; and in this case, they were."
The Users' Response
The ultimate measure of the success of an information management project is the reaction of the users. In the case of OneMap and S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services, the feedback has been enthusiastic.
"The response from the users has been really positive," Tessier said. "Some of them that used to say 'I'll never get off the CDs' are now saying 'I get all I need and it's more current.' Our business development people can see our data and your data next to each other on a map, and we can combine Tobin data and other data as well, so they can study the opportunities faster and easier."
With the baseline project well underway, Tessier and her team are looking for other ways to extend the capabilities OneMap and S&P Global Enerdeq Web Services can offer users. "We are now working to integrate OneMap and PowerTools for the business development group," she said. "And we're looking to bring S&P Global data into a common search tool."
