CAE

Multi-Vendor Application and Data Integration Platform

Click here for a presentation with screen shots of CAE version 2.3.

The Business Problem

Most oil companies use products from multiple E&P software vendors. These products all have differing - and often conflicting - environmental requirements. Internal IT and application support spend a considerable amount of time installing, configuring and maintaining multiple vendor application suites. Many companies have built their own schemes for multi-vendor application and data management, which may be more or less maintainable and cost-effective.

Objective

CAE (Common Application Environment) provides a simple and maintainable, yet highly configurable, toolkit for managing the UNIX desktop environment. The main features include:

• An extensible framework for multi-vendor application installation and configuration.
• A highly configurable multi-vendor application launcher. 
• A back-end disk management methodology for applications with no internal project structure. 
• Support for a logical division of data on disk by area/district, project, application and user. 
• A multi-system, multi-OS application execution harness. 

Bottom line: run any UNIX application from any system using any data.

Technical Details

CAE works by separating a generic application launching framework, from a site-specific middle 'wrapper' layer, from the vendor's off-the-shelf product. All customization is limited to the middle tier 'wrappers', which means that individual vendor applications can be upgraded independently. The product utilizes a cross-platform language which gives portability across Solaris, Linux and Irix.

Benefits

• Simplified end user workflows with transparent access to data and applications. 
• Transparent access to data, applications and utilities
• Easier application installation and upgrade with reduced onsite application support effort. 
• Avoids dependencies on home-grown proprietary solutions
• Extensible and therefore maintainable software environment
• Avoids single vendor dominance and lock in. 
• Actively maintained and supported product.

For further information contact Bruce Rodney