Semantic oil world
Among the top three oil companies (ExxonMobil, Shell and BP), BP has the most semantic XHTML markup under its hood. Even though the markup does dot validate, it has a good structured markup that I’ve ever seen among oil and gas related websites. Best of all, it has a tableless markup!
On a general note, why should oil companies care about web semantics when they have other important issues to worry about, one might ask. Here’s why:
From the beginning of this decade, web technology is being adopted rapidly into industries such as Oil and gas (without proper understanding of its application) for it offers enormous ease in connectivity and information access. For most, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real advantage is in the inter-operatibility of advanced equipment and devices that are used on a typical oil/gas installations. Let me explain.
A typical oil/gas complex generally has at least a couple of unmanned platforms and one mother (or central) manned platform. Every equipment and device used on these platforms (both manned and unmanned) has instrumentation deployed for remote monitoring by personnel on the central platform. Measuring instruments on equipment and devices on platforms monitor various aspects of drilling, production and operation such as: fluid flow rates, operating temperatures, amount of charge the batteries have, etc. They home-back all this data, as they receive, to monitoring stations like the central platform and then on to receiving stations and onshore offices via either Inmarsat or underwater optical fibres that run along with underwater pipelines installed to carry the processed oil/gas to shore.
In the last decade, engineers, the maintenance teams and vendors worked the hard way. Vendors provided proprietary systems and software with limited inter-operatibility between devices thus spiralling costs, both in terms of installations and maintenance, not to mention servicing at later stages and upgrading headaches.
With the emergence of semantic web technologies like XML (eXtensible Markup language), devices and equipment sharing information are no longer limited to proprietary systems and software. Eminent web designer and web evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman calls XML as the universal language in his book: Designing with web standards.
The Extensible Markup Language standard introduced in February 1998, took the (software) industry by storm. For the first time, the world was offered a universal adaptable format for structuring documents and data, not only the web, but everywhere. — Jeffrey Zeldman, Designing with Web Standards
It’s not just the software industry anymore, it’s the devices industry, instrument industry, equipment industry and generally the energy industry as well (in addition to many other industries, not discussed here).
Where the devices now use a structured information tags. Maintenance and monitoring software (read open web applications) can be easily deployed using secure intranet/wan systems and open web technologies. Today, all monitoring is possible straight from a browser console. Not only that, the collected data can be shared between analysis applications for further studies and research.
Deployment of semantic web on a remote system transforms into instant connection, high-speed data transfer, extreme simplicity, real-time monitoring, instant troubleshooting, enormous cost saving, and life saving. Equipment and instruments can now be used to recalibrate / adjust and troubleshoot systems remotely and effectively without loss of production or down time. Alarm systems can instantly trigger emergency response teams not only from neighbouring platforms but also from nearby shipping / maritime vessels, coast guard and the nearest shore or station.
Who said anything about semantic web being just web pages?