1 Database Overview

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Projects (Working) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Data Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Project / Data Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-1

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
 Introduction

The EPOS database architecture provides access to potentially any well database in addition to EPOSs own
flexible, high performance system. Different vendors' databases may be utilized on a project-by-project
basis.
EPOS applications are able to run directly on third party databases such as Openworks, Geoframe and
Gocad with no requirement to physically copy data to or from the EPOS standard database and with no
reduction in functionality. A mapping specification can be customized at each site to allow companies to
control how the data in other databases is represented in EPOS. A database server development kit is
available which allows companies to extend this access to include their own proprietary databases.
The audit trail functionality is only available when an EposData database is used.
Another feature of this system is its use of CORBA to provide distributed database access, where data may
reside on any machine in a local or wide area network, or on computers connected via the internet (including
dialup) and yet still be accessible to any valid user.
The system tracks all projects registered for use with EPOS and automatically makes available projects on
machines as they are connected to the network.
The system is platform independent and allows operation in heterogeneous environments. This includes
instances where the third party database is running on a remote machine and the EPOS application is
running on a platform not supported by the third party database software (e.g. Geolog running on Windows
XP accessing an Openworks server on LINUX).

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-2

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
 Projects (Working)

The EPOS system is project oriented. Projects are identified by a unique project name and on each machine
which hosts databases, EPOS maintains a list of registered projects. These lists are automatically combined
to present a single list of all available projects.
Each project can be considered to consist of two parts, an application directory and a well database.
The application directory is a directory on disk that contains all EPOS files used or created by EPOS that
are not well databases. These include such things as contractor data files, plots, reports, layouts,
specifications, etc.
The other part of a EPOS project is the well database. The database may be in Geolog format, belong to
another vendor, or be a proprietary system.
When a project is first registered, the user must specify these two components of the project and give a
unique name to this combination. As the application directory files are simply accessed like any other file,
the directory specified for this must be accessible under the path given on the machine on which the user
is running. The well database, however, is accessed through a well data server and requires specifying of a
host that can access the well database and unique identifying information relative to that host. For a Geolog
database, this means specifying a directory as it exists on the given host. For reasons of performance and
availability it is preferable, though not essential, for well databases to be registered to the host on which
they actually reside. This is especially true for file based systems such as Geolog's database.

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-3

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
 Data Model

Regardless of which physical database Geolog is running on, the Geolog application operates on a single
well data model. This data model is straightforward but flexible, and is described in further detail in “Well
Data Model” on page 2-1.

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-4

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
 Format

As well as supporting databases from other vendors and proprietary company databases, EPOS provides
its own high performance database. The format and operating parameters of this database are described in
detail in “Database Format” on page 3-1.

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-5

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
 Access

Primary access to well data is through the major EPOS applications. However, other means of access are
available for such things as database maintenance, batch processing, integration of third party software
and data transfer between EPOS and other packages. This access comes in several forms:
• Command line utilities:
— log_dbms for batch processing, data transfer, third party integration.
— log_db_check for database verification.
The command line utilities are described in “Utilities” on page 4-1.
• Database libraries.
cgglib and gglib, C and Fortran libraries respectively, provide public application programming
interfaces for writing programs which access well databases. These database libraries are
described in “Database Access” on page 5-1.
• CORBA interface to EPOS servers.
EPOS accesses databases by way of CORBA servers. The definition of the interface to these
servers is available in standard CORBA IDL files, which means that third party software may
directly access the servers without including any components of EPOS such as code libraries.
The third party software may be in any language which supports CORBA, such as C++ or Java.
Companies wishing to directly access these servers should contact Paradigm Geophysical.

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-6

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
 Project / Data Management

EPOS provides its distributed, vendor independent database functionality by utilizing CORBA based
servers for project management and well data access. A description of the architecture may be found in
“Architecture” on page 6-1.

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-7

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management
Index

C
CORBA 2

D
Database
accessing 2
accessing well data, alternative methods of 6
and projects 3
CORBA 2
platform dependency 2
third party types used by Geolog 2
user defined access to 2

G
Geolog
database use 2

P
projects (Geolog working)
components of 3

W
wells
data, alternative methods of access to 6

Geolog® 7 – Paradigm™ 2011 Database Overview 1-8

With Epos® 4.1 Data Management