Stats: 12 years at Petrolink
As we reach the end of the year it is an ideal time to reflect on the challenges we have seen and look ahead to the opportunities that lie ahead in 2021.
Petrolink People aims to get inside the heads of some of the brightest minds at the company. In this article, we hear from Bayu Riyadi – Platform Support Lead based in Jakarta, Indonesia.
What path did you take to arrive at Petrolink?
A friend of mine told me that her workplace was recruiting people for their Operations team as a data operator. She told me that the work is related to oil and gas exploration, a very interesting world for me. Being an IT enthusiast since high school it was a natural fit to combine the two areas by joining Petrolink.
I started in static data operations, but I wanted to try more, both the team and managers were very supportive and allowed me to get involved in our real-time operations. I found I had a knack for evaluating technology and started to work with the newly formed Interface team who is responsible for testing our in-house software.
After a while I was formally transferred to Interface where I got first-hand experience of our new technologies while doubling as fourth level support, and troubleshooting application issues with our development team. I also had the great opportunity of traveling to our other locations to support our team and even spent some time on an offshore rig to support a high-profile client.
In 2015, I was assigned to support the deployment of our newest products- PetroVault HD (PVHD), which runs on a radically new database system. This gave me the chance to learn more exciting technologies such as Cassandra NoSQL database and RabbitMQ services. As we moved to a live production environment, I was tasked with creating and leading a new team – Platform Support.
When not traveling with his family and enjoying the local food, Bayu enjoys reading about trains and playing video games.
Can you run me through what a typical day is like?
My typical day consists of coordinating the team in managing our applications and the underlying systems. We make sure that the application is working well by reviewing our system health metrics made up of a combination of proprietary and open-source technologies.
Every Monday, I lead a Change Advisory Board meeting with the system stakeholders, such as service delivery and operations, where we will propose upgrades or configuration changes to the systems. The idea is to make sure that everyone understands what will be done to the system, the risks involved in the change and what precautions can be taken to prevent any disruptions to the service. After a change is agreed upon, I will schedule and assign the tasks to the teams in Indonesia, the UK or the US and they will carry out the work.
In times of system trouble, I will join the rest of the team in the troubleshooting process to fix and restore the services as fast as possible.
I set aside some time each week to review and learn new technologies to try and see if we could implement them to improve our workflow, automating tasks whenever possible to reduce the chance of human errors or working out new methods of application deployments to reduce workload and improve our system uptime.
Any advice for someone just starting their career in oil and gas?
Don’t be afraid to ask, if you don’t know something, then ask. At the same time, share your knowledge with those around you.
What are the most enjoyable aspects of working here?
I would say traveling is the most enjoyable aspect of Petrolink. I once asked my supervisor if I could travel more. His answer was “be careful of what you wish for because you might just get it.” And yes, I did get to travel a lot in my work. I get to support the many projects of Petrolink around the world and I have been out there traveling several months of the year in the past 8 years.
How has Petrolink’s offering evolved during your time in platform support?
Petrolink has been offering services with newer technologies from the start, and in the past 5 years where I work managing Platform Support, the pace of movement to these new technologies has accelerated. New features are being developed faster with a lot of new versions that will fulfill the client’s requirements. We are also seeing higher application stability, allowing for better service uptime.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in the year ahead?
Related to the offering on the previous question, I believe the biggest challenge for Petrolink is to streamline the new application deployments. A continuous integration or continuous deployment (CI/CD) is the future for ensuring faster application delivery time and maintaining industry-leading service uptime.
