Path to MURA using iLink Frameworks

Much like every other industry overwhelmed by the information overload, the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry is also facing new challenges with the exponentially increasing volume of information and difficulty to use the data quickly and efficiently.

Existing IT architectures in the Upstream Oil and Gas sector are often limited by siloed applications, poor integration and barriers to collaboration in an increasingly connected web of information.

MURA(Microsoft Upstream Reference Architecture) is Microsoft’s approach to address these challenges faced by Upstream Industry. MURA is a set of principles that describe several ways in which computing and communications technology can be applied to improve the functions and processes of upstream organizations.

This article will focus on iLink’s approach and solution offerings for transition from existing IT architectures to more connected and efficient MURA. You can learn more about MURA specification by clicking here.

iLink’s approach to implementing MURA is by harnessing and extending the iLink’s readily available and field-tested iLink Frameworks developed by iLink Center of Excellence for Technology(CET). The frameworks as they are available today and the evolution path are explained in the following paragraphs.

iLink Frameworks:

iLink Frameworks are pre-built code libraries and well defined business processes, that are designed to accelerate software development and implementation of business processes for our clients. iLink’s Center of Excellence for Technology (CET) team of Architects, developers and domain experts develop custom frameworks using cutting edge technologies to address the challenges found in a variety of vertical industries. iLink’s Frameworks are built on industry best practices in Software Engineering.

Benefits of iLink Systems Frameworks include:

• Proven business integration experience
• 30% to 40% done on Day 1
• Take advantage of pre-built tested code
• Incorporate best practices and industry-standard designs
• Bring your solution to market faster

iLink Upstream Framework:

iLink Upstream Framework intends to address the specific challenges in the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry by harnessing MURA and building upon the field-tested array of existing iLink Frameworks. iLink Frameworks that are currently available for the Upstream industry also satisfy some of the requirements of MURA and it’s architecture stack. The frameworks will continue to evolve.

Figure 1 MURA architecture stack:

Some of the existing iLink Frameworks that can readily used by the Upstream industry. The frameworks described in the following paragraphs are iLink GIS Framework and iLink Self-Service BI Solution Framework.

iLink GIS Framework is a set of pre-built code libraries and software design guidelines that enable spatial/geographical display of Upstream data for information analysis, trending, pattern recognition and decision making. iLink GIS Framework is already being utilized by multiple companies to create intuitive visualizations of spatial data. iLink GIS Framework implementation is based on the technologies – Microsoft Bing API, Microsoft Silverlight, ESRI ArcGIS, Windows Azure and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Click here to find out more about iLink GIS Framework.              

iLink Self-Service BI Solution Framework is set of prebuilt and tested scorecards, dashboards, KPIs, and report modules developed using software products such as Denali/Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010, and Microsoft Office. Click here to find out more about iLink Self-Service BI Solution Framework

iLink MURA Framework would implement the specific requirements in MURA Architecture Stack that are not addressed by existing iLink Frameworks.

The MURA architecture stack comprises of the layers:

• Integrated Portal
• Data Integration (and BPM)
• Canonical/Semantic Data Services component
• Orchestration Layer
• Security and Entitlement Services

The software tools and technologies required to implement the stack exist as separate entities today. The iLink MURA Framework will bring together the technologies and the best of software engineering practices to offer readily available software libraries and processes for the Upstream industry. The following table is a good example of the mapping between various layers in the MURA architecture stack and the Microsoft technologies available today to implement them.

Stay tuned for more updates on the iLink Upstream Framework.