Stratus Technologies is a producer and supplier of fault tolerant computer servers and software. The company’s speciality is virtualisation solutions based on various models of its ftServer hardware technology (entry-level, mid-range and enterprise-class), all running the proprietary vSphere virtualisation software. The traditional market focus has been on data centre intensive applications like those found in the financial services sector, where the primary benefits are disaster recovery and business continuity through the backup on high-availability virtual platforms that can be conveniently located remote from the main facility.
The emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things, with its reliance on Big Data and analytics, has however created new opportunities for Stratus, which is why VP of business management, Jason Andersen, was in South Africa to attend the 2017 Wonderware X-Change User Group Conference at Sun City. He took a time-out from the company stand in the Expo area to chat to SA Instrumentation and Control about the benefits of ‘virtualisation at the edge’.
“Essentially, Stratus has developed virtualisation into a service offering for the manufacturing community, and this is what I am in South Africa to promote,” explains Andersen amidst the hustle and bustle at Sun City. “The IIoT has changed the ‘data centre’ paradigm. Industrial enterprises are now pushing computing right out to the edge of their networks, where the production is happening, whether that be an oil pipeline, or using intelligent sensors to optimise operations at a mine. It is those places away from where the back-end systems are usually located.”
The edge then is comprised of those organisational facilities that are traditionally associated with operations technology (OT), rather than with information technology (IT), this is where Stratus has identified its niche.
What Stratus offers
Typically, in a manufacturing setup, the Stratus systems are located on the IP-based networks that bridge into the control layers to fetch data from the PLCs and sensors that operate there, perhaps on a fieldbus network. Andersen elaborates on one of the primary benefits: “What the control system vendors are starting to do in response to IIoT requirements is to split things into distinct control and data paths. The benefit of virtual equipment in the data path is that one piece of software can now service multiple hardware devices with exactly the information required by each of them.”
Andersen views scada, historian and HMI applications as the areas where Stratus typically gets involved with its automation customers. “I believe that the edge is perfectly suited for software defined networking capabilities,” he adds. “If the analytics and data processing functionality also reside there (versus in the Cloud), then the amount of data requiring transfer from the edge site to the main site is far less than would be required within a typical data centre.”
But how does an operation typically staffed by non IT-savvy personnel support an approach like this?
“We make it easy for people to adopt this technique,” explains Andersen. “Typically, we would install our hardware platforms equipped with the software virtualisations that we have developed jointly with our customer. We will then commission the equipment and provide remote continuous real-time monitoring and support of that facility. If we detect that something is starting to go wrong, we can take immediate remedial action, before the situation starts to become serious.”
Andersen uses a water network to illustrate the ideas in a practical application. “Typically, a water system network will be upgraded when a government or municipality wants better insight into the reliability and quality of the water supply it is delivering to citizens,” he explains. “And usually this will include better insight into consumption patterns as well.
“If the system architecture were to include our virtualisation technology, then the design would contain one or two of our ftServers, depending on the size. On these, the system integrators would be running the scada and historian solutions, possibly in conjunction with a thin-client HMI. So our solution would typically cover the treatment facility and might include the pumping stations as well.”
The big advantage of this type of approach is the 24/7/365 monitoring of the system that Stratus would undertake on its equipment post commissioning, effectively securing the control system against a server malfunction through early detection and warning. “We can connect to the system through any standard Internet connection,” explains Andersen. “This means we can monitor our equipment wirelessly at any remote location covered by a GSM network, we can also connect through a standard modem in areas where a normal telephone line is available and additionally, we support email and dial up capabilities for sites not connected to the Internet.”
The monitoring works on a report by exception basis i.e. all the required technology is already built into the servers to check their critical parameters on a continuous basis, but they will only report an alarm when one of these goes out of preset limits. The Stratus team then reacts to these alerts in a fashion appropriate to the severity of the problem. The advantage of this approach is that the system consumes very little bandwidth, given that the standard operating life of the equipment is around seven years, but any fault conditions that do arise can be dealt with on a real-time basis.
An option worth considering
For those organisations that need to modernise a scada or HMI application, but are worried by the fact that they do not have personnel who are suitably IT-qualified to support such an upgrade, this could be a good time to talk to someone from Stratus about the benefits of virtualisation at the edge. Going this route offers the security of support and continuous availability protection by a company that has been in the virtualisation business for decades.
For more information contact Pieter van der Merwe, Stratus Computer Technologies, +27 (0)10 003 8531, pieter.vandermerwe@stratus.com,, www.stratus.com
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