Open for business
All companies in the automation industry write about 'open' and 'non-proprietary' systems. But what does this mean in practice? Many of these terminal automation systems are fixed on one, closed and proprietary operating system, and are developed in a vendor-specific language using a proprietary library.
With Oilband, this is not the case. Unlike other terminal automation system vendors who use closed, proprietary platforms as their foundation, ours are fully and truly open and industry standard.
Linux is our operating system platform of choice for a number of reasons, including stability, customisability, Unix™ interoperability, and security. Open source makes this possible. In the 15 years since the first Linux release, the operating system has become a trusted, mission critical foundation for many of the world's largest companies.
Our development platform, Java, is also open and non-proprietary. For years, Java has been implemented by multiple vendors, such as Sun, IBM and Apple, as well as by open source developers. The official Java platform reference implementation itself has source code which is freely downloadable and is under an open-source license. Compare this with the closed, single-vendor proprietary solutions that our competitors offer, in which the server and clients only work with Windows.
So while Petrosoft does run under Windows, we don't force customers to use it. Our choice of technology allows our customers to take advantage of a truly open server OS platform and have freedom to deploy clients on any platform they choose. Clients are tested and available for Windows 2000 and Windows XP, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X.
No terminal automation system would be complete without a powerful SQL DBMS behind it, and Petrosoft is no exception. We selected PostgreSQL as our database engine. This is an open, freely available system offering excellent transaction processing and advanced data handling facilities rivalling closed database management systems used by other automation providers.
Open systems give customers choice. It also reduces acquisition costs - we pass on our savings directly to our users, making us one of the most cost-effective and risk-free terminal automation system suppliers in the business.