This paper examines how Tullow Oil, a multinational oil and gas exploration company, can address its data management needs through cloud computing — specifically Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) models. The analysis evaluates key variables including data portability, application portability, platform portability, application interoperability, platform interoperability, and management interoperability. It argues that no single cloud model can satisfy all organizational needs, and that hybrid delivery models offer the most practical path forward. The paper concludes with a recommendation for a change management team focused on publication and acquisition interoperability across cloud service environments.
Tullow Oil is one of the renowned multinational companies in the oil and gas exploration industry. The company is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The firm held investment interests across 150 licenses in 25 countries and had up to 67 producing fields. In 2012, the firm produced 79,200 barrels on average each day. Its largest activities are based in the Atlantic Margins and Africa, where oil provinces have been discovered in places such as Uganda, Kenya, French Guiana, and Ghana. The company's main production is based in six African countries and the Southern North Sea. The Jubilee oil field in Ghana's offshore was discovered in 2007, and production began in 2010, making it the largest discovery in the company's history.
As storage and bandwidth prices continue to drop, cloud-based service solutions are becoming increasingly attractive for small and medium businesses seeking reduced licensing costs. This case study examines how Tullow Oil can satisfy its data management needs and proposes viable alternatives related to PaaS cloud computing (Marinescu, 2013).
Tullow Oil can use cloud solutions as a way of avoiding the need to recruit additional IT staff, while allowing the organization to focus fully on its core responsibilities and growth. Although a focus on cloud computing will provide Tullow Oil with opportunities to embrace cost-effective alternatives, the firm must be cautious about an "all-cloud" mentality. No single model can satisfy all the needs of an organization. Diving headfirst into PaaS cloud computing may cause Tullow Oil to overlook how best to maximize benefits from existing set-ups, as well as how to negotiate effectively for cloud-based services among market vendors (Furht & Escalante, 2010). Hybrid delivery models allow the company to blend the most appropriate long-term commitments while reducing unnecessary expenses. Management can identify and address inefficiencies in both on-premise and hosted models. Tullow Oil currently faces the dilemma of whether to pursue online hosting or retain on-premise solutions (Marinescu, 2013).
Each alternative carries positive and negative impacts, and companies must assess their business needs as well as their infrastructure foundation before making such decisions. The key point is that most solutions may work within either the cloud or on-premise environments. The choice of platform requires trade-off comparisons between cost and security while optimizing returns. Tullow Oil must weigh numerous advantages and disadvantages of PaaS, and the question of software and service type warrants intense consideration (Bahga & Madisetti, 2013).
One of the key comparison variables is data portability. In on-site storage solutions, firms retain full control over their content and the mobility of their infrastructure. Data portability through the cloud option enables the firm to reuse data components across different applications. For instance, if the enterprise uses SaaS products for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the commercial terms of those products may be less attractive compared to other SaaS products that use in-site CRM solutions. Customer data can be retained within SaaS products with a strong focus on the enterprise's internal operations. Managing this data — including removing it from other CRM solutions — varies in difficulty (Rhoton, 2009).
In some cases, migration is a difficult task. Data structures are designed to fit specific application processing forms, and significant transformation may be necessary when moving data to products with different designs. This challenge is not unique to cloud environments; it mirrors the difficulties of moving data between different products in traditional environments as well. In traditional environments, customers can often remain on previous versions of their products to avoid costly upgrades. With SaaS cloud management solutions, however, vendors can force customers to pay more or risk losing access to services entirely. The cloud also introduces new technical problems and can make existing technical challenges more serious, even where commercial arrangements differ.
The second variable is application portability (Marinescu, 2013). In-house storage mechanisms generally allow for higher levels of data customization, but Tullow Oil risks producing data that is incompatible with different application platforms in the industry. Application portability enables the reuse of application components on cloud PaaS services as well as on traditional computing platforms. When Tullow Oil's applications are built on a specific cloud PaaS service, performance requirements, costs, and other factors may hinder migration to other PaaS services or back to in-house systems. The ease of such transitions translates directly into time and resource savings. If applications use platform-specific features, or if the in-house platform does not conform to industry standards, migration becomes significantly more difficult (Bahga & Madisetti, 2013).
Application portability requires standard interfaces exposed through supporting platforms. Tullow Oil can achieve application interoperability by enabling industry-standard applications and using information communication and service discovery protocols implemented within the platform (Barry, 2012). This approach provides Tullow Oil with ample platform access and supports direct application deployment. The cloud PaaS option allows platforms to run on cloud IaaS services so that applications can permit diversified management of underlying resources.
A related concern for Tullow Oil is portability between operational and development environments. Cloud PaaS is particularly attractive for development environments from a financial perspective, as it avoids investing in expensive systems that sit idle once development work is complete. When different environments — in-house systems and various cloud services — are used for runtime, Tullow Oil must devise applications that function consistently across them. Cloud computing facilitates greater integration between development and operational environments. This integration is most effective when consistent environments are used across both development and operations, and when Tullow Oil applies coherent policies to information development and processing.
"Platform compatibility and machine image portability"
"Interoperability across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS environments"
"Management flexibility and change management recommendation"
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