Tarmin and IBM help Premier Oil

Tarmin and IBM help Premier Oil manage rapidly growing unstructured data reduce storage cost, simplify compliance and increase business agility

Data Defined Storage project provides Premier Oil with secure and reliable platform for gaining value from unstructured data

Premier Oil a leading FTSE 250 independent upstream oil and gas company, has selected Tarmin, Inc., a leading provider of Data Defined Storage solutions, IBM and Eurotech Computer Services for an ongoing big data project to manage unstructured data in the Information Management Department. Premier aims to store its rapidly growing data, consolidate disparate repositories and archive and retain business critical information in a secure and reliable platform in order to reduce escalating storage costs, address information security and compliance concerns, and streamline management and integration of post-merger digital assets. The combined Data Defined Storage solution represents the first customer win in a multi-year agreement between IBM and Tarmin to bring a joint solution based on Tarmin GridBank and IBM Systems. The solution will enable Premier to gain competitive advantage through better exploitation of their unstructured geological seismic data as a strategic business asset.

“We feel that the new approach to unstructured data management, that Gridbank offers, will optimally position us to respond to new opportunities in oil and gas exploration, development and production,” said David Edwards, Group Head of Information Services at Premier. “The integrated IBM and Tarmin solution delivers multiple data management objectives in a single, cohesive offering.”

Premier’s volume of data, generated through oil and gas exploration, are growing ceaselessly, driven by new technologies and increasing sensor resolution. These factors are compounded through acquisition of digital assets across heterogeneous arrays of storage hardware through M&A activity. This leads to challenges associated with data discovery, on demand access, exploitation of data and a need for a single point of truth across the organisation, key differentiators in ensuring that Premier is able to underpin business growth through identification and exploitation of opportunities.

The joint Tarmin and IBM multi-TB, multi-site Data Defined Storage solution takes a data centric approach to providing media independent data storage, distributed Object Dedupe, compression and encryption, archival and tiering, failsafe replication and unified search across 500+ file types, including O&G specific formats, ensuring high availability continuous access to previously siloed data, trapped in remote data centers.

The deal with Premier follows a recent agreement between IBM and Tarmin to collaborate with each other and also with their respective business partner Ecosystems to deliver Data Defined Storage solutions to enable their clients to gain value from the vast amount of data that they generate. Tarmin’s innovative GridBank technology plays a vital role in responding to the pronounced need for flexible and effective solutions to the challenges of managing and storing unstructured data at an unprecedented scale.