Managing well data is a lifelong pursuit for most Oil & Gas enterprises. However, defining and maintaining a reliable set of descriptive information about each well is a game of shadows that has consumed many a company. A simple structure may work best in beginning the process of moving toward a more complete, more confident organization in terms of understanding its well portfolio.

For most organizations, aligning IT systems with the core business is a goal that always seems to be just out of reach. I speak with clients every day who are on this common, age-old quest. Most ask the same two questions: “What is the best way to align IT with business? And where should we start?” There are no hard and fast answers, but an asset-centric approach to information management can help rationalize any organization's IT environment.

One of the coolest features unique to SharePoint Online is the ability to share sites with external users. I’ve noticed the functionality was there throughout the beta but I believe I hadn’t actually been able to get it to work until GA. Even then, it took checking a number of settings before I could actually get it to work.

There is a lot of conversation and hubbub about the release of ITIL 2011. Is it a new version? Is it just minor changes? Are there new processes? Have some processes been removed? Well, there is good news and . . . more good news!

I’ve been working with BMC Remedy for 17 years, and from time to time come upon version upgrade challenges that I’m sure others are seeing with their own projects. Recently, I had to determine if there was a way to migrate data from a source server to a target server on a company–by-company basis during an ITSM 7.6.04 upgrade using the Delta Data Manager, as this is not a BMC-supported approach. This concept has recently been proven effective in an upgrade from a 7.1 source to a 7.6.04 target server although the setup to accomplish this is manual.