PGS Implements Sentinel RMS to Increase Efficiency, While Enhancing Customisation for Customers

Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) is a leading worldwide geophysical

company. PGS provides an extensive range of seismic services and

products for the petroleum industry including data acquisition,

processing, reservoir analysis and interpretation. The company also

possesses the world’s most extensive multi-client data library.

Customers of PGS include major oil companies, geophysical contractor

companies and universities around the world. 

 

To license and protect their software, NUCLEUS, PGS was using a

system that had been developed in-house. NUCLEUS is an integrated

software package for seismic modeling and feasibility studies. It is

modular-based and includes all major seismic modeling methods: full

wave field reflectivity, 2D & 3D dynamic ray-tracing, and 2D & 3D

visco-elastic finite difference modeling.

 

Business Challenge

PGS delivers NUCLEUS software electronically. When customers

download the application, licenses are generated on the fly based on

information in the customer database that was developed in-house. It

is vital that the software licensing application will be able to easily

integrate with this system. 

 

Additionally, customer installations are all highly customised. As each

installation differs, the PGS licensing system needed to easily handle a

wide range of configurations. The previous, in-house system did not

have the ability to node-lock licenses without modifying the software

on a per-license basis. As a result, node-locking was rarely used.

Additionally, it did not have the ability to track the number of users,

which made it difficult to make custom license solutions. This process

needed to be simplified. PGS required a software licensing system that

could not only offer a wide variety of license models, but was flexible

enough to integrate with their existing customer database.

 

The existing system was also not particularly safe against reverse

engineering. PGS sought to increase security to ensure protection of

their intellectual property, while continuing to offer a high level of

customisation.

Solution & Benefits

After evaluating alternative solutions, PGS selected SafeNet Sentinel

RMS to replace their in-house system. Sentinel RMS is currently in use

within many organisations in the oil, gas and petrochemical space,

further increasing PGS’ confidence in the product.

 

By integrating licensing into NUCLEUS through the Sentinel RMS APIs,

PGS was able to gain greater control over their product. With over 250

APIs, every aspect of licensing can be controlled. The RMS

Development Kit APIs also supports the widest range of license models

in the industry, providing PGS the flexibility they required.

 

“By replacing our original licensing system, we are now able to easily

generate customised licenses that more closely meet individual

customer’s needs,” said Morten W. Pedersen, Senior Research

Geophysicist, PGS.

 

By implementing Sentinel RMS, PGS has also been able to increase

efficiency in their development and fulfillment processes. The Sentinel

RMS client library handles all aspects of network communication, so

various license models can be generated at fulfillment with no

additional development required. Sentinel RMS enables PGS to

generate multiple license options from one primary code build,

alleviating the need to maintain and synchronise multiple feature

builds.

 

Conclusion

The implementation of Sentinel RMS enables PGS to ensure effective

control over the licensing of its high-value software. The ease of

integration of RMS proved to be a significant advantage. The quality

and speed of SafeNet’s support enabled PGS to integrate the Sentinel

RMS solution into their products and go to market rapidly.

 

“We were pleasantly surprised at the speed with which SafeNet

technical support responded to our requests,” stated Mr. Pedersen.

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