Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat Announce Major Collaboration for the Energy Industry

Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat, announced a collaboration to accelerate digital transformation across the oil and gas industry.  The joint initiative will provide global access to Schlumberger’s exploration and production (E&P) cloud-based environment and cognitive applications by leveraging IBM’s hybrid cloud technology, built on the Red Hat OpenShift container platform.

Collaborative development will initially focus on two key areas:

• Private, hybrid or multi-cloud deployment of the DELFI cognitive E&P environment enabled by Red Hat OpenShift to significantly expand access for customers.
• Delivering the first hybrid cloud implementation of the OSDU data platform (the open data platform for the industry).

Through the agreement with IBM and Red Hat, Schlumberger has committed to the exclusive use of Red Hat OpenShift.  Using the container platform will enable the deployment of applications in the DELFI environment across any infrastructure, from traditional data centers to multiple clouds, including private and public.  This new way of hosting will offer the possibility to use multiple cloud providers and will address critical issues for customers, facilitating in-country deployments in compliance with local regulations and data residency requirements.

The DELFI environment incorporates cutting-edge data analytics and artificial intelligence, drawing upon multiple data sources, automating workflows, and facilitating seamless collaboration for domain teams.  More oil and gas operators, suppliers and partners, from all regions of the world will be enabled to work from the industry’s digital environment—built on a standard, open platform—where they can ‘write once and run everywhere’ when creating new applications.

Schlumberger supports many of the world’s most vital oil and gas operations and is on the forefront of digitalization across the energy sector.  It has established the DELFI environment as the cognitive E&P environment where energy professionals access open APIs to work together, independent of role, workflow or physical location, and create solutions that significantly improve business operations.

The organizations intend to further their collaboration with the creation of a differentiated data management and operations solution for the OSDU data platform, enabling oil and gas operators to build, deploy and transition digital solutions with hybrid-cloud data infrastructures.  This will foster wider collaboration and greater efficiency across many professionals in the E&P value chain.

Prior to this announcement, Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat successfully piloted the new hybrid cloud deployment of the DELFI environment on Red Hat OpenShift, a Kubernetes platform, working with Red Hat and IBM Services, the world’s largest team of Red Hat certified consultants.  The two organizations focused on demonstrating the flexibility and portability for compute, storage and data intensive exploration and field development applications.

IBM’s collaboration with Schlumberger is part of the company's new commitment to invest in accelerating adoption of hybrid cloud and open architectures.  IBM is targeting essential industries, such as energy, running the crucial processes of the world.  These efforts are increasing in importance as organizations navigate the impacts of the pandemic and economic downturn, which is creating an acute need for speed to market, flexibility and nimbleness to encourage innovation.