ANTARES

Overview

ANTARES is a service-enabled, thin-client application that allows the rapid deployment of complex business processes with minimal bespoke code development. ANTARES offers a robust, proven and cost-effective alternative to traditional bespoke solutions. See overview of ANTARES architecture.

Applications

SAIC initially developed ANTARES to meet the needs of the upstream oil and gas industry in the creation of solutions for hydrocarbon accounting (HA) and production reporting (PR), but its flexibility allows it to model virtually any business process without compromise.

ANTARES provides users with tools to manage their own applications. Recognising that assets change over time, ANTARES enables authorised users to modify the business logic and reports produced by the system.

Designed to offer flexibility and configurability, ANTARES enables SAIC to implement business solutions that meet your requirements and complement your own HA and PR processes.

Features

• Enterprise-strength spreadsheet calculation engine provides system calculations in an easily understood and familiar format and allows existing business logic expressed in Microsoft Excel^® to be reused.
• Flexible data collection engine provides automatic capture, collation and data cleansing from multiple remote systems and services.
• Out-of-the-box support for data extraction from modern data historians as well as the ability to rapidly create Web services to exchange data with existing systems.
• Centralised validation engine allows users to define their own data rules to validate data entry to improve the overall quality and consistency of data entered into the system and allow users to focus on more important tasks.
• Supports knowledge transfer within the organisation via a context-sensitive help system that allows users to update help messages with actual resolutions. This wiki-like functionality promotes knowledge capture, reducing dependencies on individual team members.
• Reporting facility allows the creation of reports in numerous formats including Excel, PDF, XML, or text.
• Robust role-based security model gives users the appropriate access. The system has full audit tracking so all changes to data and calculations are tracked and maintained, thereby supporting the creation of SOX-compliant business processes.

Benefits

For users:

• Provides a fully visible and recognisable spreadsheet-based calculation engine that allows users to create and modify their business logic in a familiar environment
• Includes robust auditing so that all changes to data and configuration are stored in the database, along with who made the change and why
• Provides a configurable system giving users the ability to manage changes to business logic as the business evolves

For IT departments:

• Provides true hardware, operating system and database independence, meaning that ANTARES fits easily into the existing corporate environment, minimising future upgrade costs
• Enables the majority of system changes to be managed by users without recourse to support organisations resulting in greatly reduced ongoing IT support costs

For the business:

• Offers reduced implementation risk as ANTARES is a flexible, configurable system based on proven technologies. ANTARES projects far less risk to the business than traditional IT projects
• Offers reduced organisational reputation risk by promoting a single, easily accessible, company production data set
• Provides powerful work flow and context-sensitive help facilities that actively support knowledge sharing within the organisation
• Provides automated data gathering and cleansing that permits staff to focus on their jobs rather than getting data into an IT system

Excel^® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.