IBM and Red Hat to build oil and gas industry hybrid cloud

Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat have joined forces to accelerate digital transformation across the oil and gas industry.

The collaboration will initially focus on private, hybrid and multi-cloud deployments for Schlumberger's own services with Red Hat OpenShift. This will then hopefully lead to the delivery of the first hybrid cloud implementation for the OSDU - an open data standard for the oil and gas industry.

Schlumberger has committed to exclusively using Red Hat Openshift with the container platform deploying applications across all of its infrastructure, from traditional data centres to multiple clouds - including private and public.

The organisation's DELFI cognitive exploration and product (E&P) environment is a secure, cloud-based platform that uses data on all aspects of its value chain. It incorporates data analytics and AI, drawing upon multiple sources and automating workflows for seamless collaboration for its domain teams.

The collaboration with IBM and Red Hat will allow many more oil and gas operators, suppliers and partners to work from the industry's digital environment where they can 'write once and run everywhere', according to Schlumberger.

The hope is that this new way of hosting will offer the possibility to use multiple cloud providers, addressing critical issues and facilitating in-country deployments in compliance with local regulations and data residency requirements.

"By expanding market access to the DELFI environment we take a major step forward on the journey to establishing the open and flexible digital environment our industry needs," said Olivier Le Peuch, CEO of Schlumberger.

"Our collaboration with IBM and Red Hat complements our established digital partnerships to produce an industry-first solution to overcome our customers' challenges," he added. "Together, we are enabling seamless access to a hybrid cloud platform in all countries across the globe for deployment in any basin, for any operator."