September: Cover Story: Network Enables Remote Collaboration
Sharing and manipulating data in an interactive, immersive environment is driving the upstream industry. The ability to do this real time from numerous remote locations will be the basis of the real virtual oilfield.

By Bill Bartling, Global Energy Solutions, SGI.


It very well may be one of the most inhospitable and dangerous places to work on earth. Operating 186 miles (299 km) off the coast of Norway in the North Sea, thousands of men and women toil on oil platforms taller than the Empire State Building, working in high winds, rain and tumultuous waters to bring the country's oil and gas reserves to market.

One day, those treacherous environments may no longer exist, replaced by undersea stations controlled remotely from shore. But developing a remote-controlled offshore operation requires split-second decisions to be made by a company's best minds, many of whom may be working far from the field, or incapable of seeing the massive amount of data necessary to make an intelligent assessment of the operations.

SGI (Silicon Graphics) has worked to solve this problem through the development of technologies that offer the ability to collaborate remotely while viewing and manipulating fully-populated, 3D volumes of seismic, geological, reservoir and facilities data. These new technologies, known as Visual Area Networking, are particularly valuable to the energy industry as many companies are forced to make do with a smaller number of experienced personnel disparately located at sites throughout the world. With the networking technology, a company's most-important decision-makers can view and analyze rich visual data with a thin client, such as a standard laptop or desktop PC. The company's best minds can not only look at data simultaneously, but can also take turns manipulating that data in real time, regardless of where they may physically reside.

Last fall, geoscientists at Statoil demonstrated the ability to share a fully interactive interpretation session involving large 3D volumetric models of Gullfaks oil field data with exploration experts in remote locations. The exercise proved corporate partners can make rapid drilling and field development decisions using technology to interpret large volumes of data collaboratively. Representatives from 24 of the world's major energy companies, including BP, ExxonMobil, Gaz de France, NorskHydro, Petoro, Shell and Total gathered at Statoil's IB-Senter in Stavanger, Norway, to see how the technology brings increased efficiencies to the oil and gas industry. The demonstration was conducted at the IB-Senter with the aim of analyzing data from Statoil's Gullfaks oil field in the Norwegian North Sea. The graphics were created at a service provider's visualization center, also in Stavanger, and then sent to the thin client at the Statoil location via a fiber-optic data link.

The sample Gullfaks data presented during the Stavanger demonstration included seismic, well, well log, and seismic attribute information as well as interpreted surfaces, horizons and faults. It was processed at a service provider facility using an SGI Onyx graphics supercomputer running Magic Earth's GeoProbe seismic interpretation software and analyzed collaboratively between scientists at that office and at Statoil's office kilometers away.

The visual data was transferred to the remote thin client at Statoil (in this instance, a Dell desktop PC) via an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) fiber-optic network from OilCamp, a data telecommunications network owned by Telenor, Norway's largest telecommunications company. The transmitted data, moving at speeds up to 155 Mbps with a guaranteed rate of 50 Mbps, was displayed on the desktop monitor in full-screen size at a resolution of 1024 by 768 resolution and 15-20fps.

The remote collaboration was made possible by SGI OpenGL Vizserver software, a key enabler of Visual Area Networking that enables the transfer of rich data between an SGI Onyx to another Reality Center or thin client. To keep the files small, the software transmits only the pixels of the rendered graphic from the Onyx graphics supercomputer, rather than the raw data itself. As a result, the software can operate on virtually any type of client, including laptops, workstations and, soon, even PDAs.

During the demonstration, participants at the service provider facility and at the IB-Senter were able to view, discuss, and manipulate findings in real time as well as share control of the collaborative session. Data received on the Dell computer and the images from a live video teleconference originating from the facility were projected on a large immersive screen to the entire audience. One remote thin client and the terminal on the server, which can be situated in different locations, can share control in a Visual Area Network. With further development, it is expected that the number of terminals that can share control will dramatically increase.

Remote collaboration is becoming especially important in areas such as the North Sea, where companies are beginning to adopt the "digital field" concept, utilizing an on-shore command and control center connected to the site via a fiber-optic data link. With human resources stretched thin and disparately located, Visual Area Networks can be a key component in rapid, intelligent decision making, as long as the work force has been trained to be able to work collectively. With the network, rich visual data can remain safely stored, staying confidential and secure and ready for rapid delivery to computational or visualization computers while simultaneously available for intelligent evaluation and manipulation by all key personnel throughout the organization.

While Visual Area Networking is a powerful technology solution, its benefits will be maximized only if there is a concomitant change in the method of working within the company that employs it. At Statoil, those changes began seven years ago, when the company first began to integrate computer visualization technology. Statoil has altered its workflow, moving away from a serial style - characterized by one team passing data and recommendations to the next - to a more collaborative paradigm.

As one would expect, implementing such changes in any workplace is far from a simple task. Political issues, entrenched working styles, and personality clashes often make such a switch difficult. In the 1990s, Statoil understood that to remain competitive and nimble it would be necessary to break down similar barriers. To encourage change, Statoil altered its workspace designs to include an open plan, offering employees meeting and refreshment areas around which they could gather and become comfortable with working collectively.

Now employees work in asset teams rather than as isolated individuals. When using a Reality Center, employees from several disciplines meet together. Each team member evaluates the data from their own unique point of view. By working collaboratively, each expert is more likely to spot errors in the data and make an instantaneous correction.

Creating a 3D visualization of seismic data greatly enhances the skills of the participants. The same scientists who might find it difficult to examine numerical data delivered in spreadsheets find it natural to formulate their thoughts and to arrive at conclusions quickly when looking at complex visual representations of the same information. There is no substitute for viewing data in an immersive environment, allowing participants to walk around and within the field while they compare, analyze and isolate key areas that have piqued their interest.