When shaping the future of energy, we need a clear direction in how we’re going to do it – and IT is no exception. That’s why our Chief Engineer IT is tasked with building and implementing the directions we want to take, together with leading advisors, networks and employees. 

This February, Knut Erik Hollund stepped down from the role after his four-year tenure as Chief Engineer IT. We figured that would be a great starting point to showcase where we’ve been heading these last years - and where we want to go.  

“For us, moving away from monoliths and into a cloud-native world has been the focus for the last four years,” Knut Erik says. 

From monoliths to microservices

In Equinor IT, we take an agile approach to what we do. This means we learn, fail, develop and most important of all iterate quickly. Doing this on monolith’s, however, can be a real pain. Since it’s large software with everything it does bundled into one, it’s difficult to iterate without having to push updates for the entire thing. 

“Some might call them legacy software, but I don’t think that’s a good term. They’ve served us extremely well, and some of them still do, but we won’t be able to do what we want and need with this monolithic approach,” Knut Erik explains.

The tech giants among us are all working in this cloud-native approach with a world of microservices: small specific software that caters to a specific task that together with many other microservices make up a product.  If we look at Spotify, the playlist you see is a specific service that handles everything you do with your playlist – and nothing more. The result is Spotify runs on several microservices.

“You might think that more moving parts make for more problems, but it’s the other way around. Thanks to API’s, they communicate with ease and if there’s a need for the software to scale from 10 to 1000 users it all happens automatically,” Knut Erik says.

All about API's

As applications and the Internet will take a much bigger place on stage in the years to come, most of us will soon be expecting to do our work using nothing but our web browser. This brings a whole new world of requirements to how we work and how we develop the software people use. 

“We haven’t crossed the finish line, but we’re moving ahead in the right direction,” he adds.

Now that we’ve established that we’re going to be cloud-native and based on microservices, it’s time to have a look at what makes these microservices communicate. And the ways that we can use, share and liberate data – thanks to API’s. That’s why the Equinor API strategy was launched in 2019, a strategy now embraced by many of our people and development teams.

Making data accessible for everyone

Without them, we won’t be able to develop microservices that let us keep up the speed – they’re truly the core element that provides interfaces between apps, data and services. With proper management, API’s can be an enabler for innovation and faster development of both digital products and new business models.

Security as a first-class citizen

With a change to cloud-native applications also comes a change in how we view application security (AppSec). The traditional approach would be to use a flat network infrastructure with a high level of trust. If you are connected to the corporate network – we trust you. Security is handled by the big corporate firewall. But that’s an approach that just won’t fly in the world of cloud-native applications where we need new trust models, like “zero trust”.

The Internet – the new corporate network

When moving everything into a cloud-native world, the world of networks and access control also has to change. Today, access to certain tools, data or services is restricted to specific networks or hardware. The future, however, will be more about checking to see if you have authorization instead of where or what you’re accessing it from.

Elisabeth is the leading advisor for network infrastructure and works on the Client Network Upgrade Project – CNUP among us friends. The work is done in two tracks: one focuses on replacing the current infrastructure (switches, routers etc.), and the other focuses on how authorization and access etc. will work on the client side.

“This is all part of our current Internet first strategy, and it’ll be exciting to see how advancements in wireless technologies can improve the user experience,” Elisabeth says.

Some of the work they’re doing is finding a secure access service edge (SASE) provider. SASE bundles software-defined networking with network security functions and delivers them from a single service provider.

With thousands of units to upgrade and replace, they really have their work cut out for them - but the hope is to be done within the next few years.

Staying open and collaborative

Sharing isn’t just something we do internally, it’s also something we do with the world – especially in the world of software. The default setup for software development in Equinor is open source. The reasoning behind it can be found on a corporate level as well as on a developer level:

Industry 4.0 - the future of Equinor

The world of industry has changed several times, and we’re entering one of the latest changes – Industry 4.0. It’s characterized by interoperability, when different ecosystems exchange information that’s commonly understandable – which allows communication and collaboration. Things just work in the background, so you don’t have to worry. 

“Industry 4.0 is a digital transformation of industries where the boundary between physical assets, industrial production and the digital world is becoming more and more blurred and intertwined. Industrial assets become intelligent and are able to connect, communicate and collaborate on specific tasks – relying on interoperability,” Steffan Sørenes, leading advisor Plant IT architecture, explains.