Distributed Data Processing is becoming an increasingly significant part of the petroleum explorationist's computing environment. At Arco, hardware, software, and personnel of both central and remote computing sites have been linked to establish a computing resource network.

By separating those network components which can be practically and economically implemented at remote computing centers from those more suited to a central site, the explorationist is being given immediate local access to a great deal more computing resources. Because of this distribution of computing resources, considerable gains have been realized by the exploration community in terms of increased exploration efficiency, improved information transfer, and greater technical integrity.

This paper describes Arco's Computing Resource Network, some of its more elaborate capabilities, some of the currently active distributed applications, and some of the reasons for its success in an exploration environment.

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