Traditional hydrocarbon accounting solutions
The benefits of cloud for hydrocarbon accounting solutions are often overlooked when a standard platform is the only subject being discussed. It’s a lot less clear how people are benefitting from this.
For good reasons, there are variations in the commercial rules applied to allocation on different assets. In many products these variations are “baked in” to the implementation. The result is a unique system for every asset. There is a high cost for initial delivery, and an equally high cost and level of disruption associated with upgrades.
The difference
EnergySys is different. While it’s absolutely built on standards, its architecture really does afford unique value for customers. Furthermore, the benefits of cloud can be seen from every aspect of the system.
First, every partner-provided application hosted on the platform is metadata driven. This sounds complex but what it actually means is that there’s no programming involved in creating applications. All the screens and objects you use are dynamically generated. The result is a clear separation between platform and application. This makes it possible for us to provide regular upgrades without additional cost or input of effort from our customers.
We’ve had four upgrades in the past year alone. Each upgrade has new features or performance enhancements, and each is delivered without any impact on our customers’ use of the system.
But that’s not all. It brings me to the second point. EnergySys was designed and built by us to run in the cloud, and operates on our own secure cloud infrastructure. This means that every single client is on the same version of EnergySys. No exceptions. With other hydrocarbon accounting solutions, that simply isn’t possible. It was installed on premises and required significant investment of time and effort to effect an upgrade. The result is a reduction in the need to maintain and support multiple versions of product. A higher quality of service, and a unique opportunity for customers to share in the benefits of our investment in continuing product development.
The benefits of cloud are often discussed in terms of reducing costs, but the key benefit is a dramatic increase in value.