In Norway, every energy company has to accurately report power production numbers to a centralized regulatory authority. To precisely control the distribution of electricity and ensure it produces the right amount of energy, Skagerak relies on data it collects from peripherals in its VDI. Using an IBM® FlashSystem® solution with IBM HyperSwap® technology, Skagerak has the power and fault tolerance it requires to secure the transfer of critical data from laptops and handheld devices to the internal staff that manages power supply. HyperSwap technology is now a function of all of Skagerak’s storage systems because it provides dual-site access to a volume. Data that is written to the volume is automatically sent to both copies. So, if one goes down, the other volume can still deliver the same data without any disruption to the applications.
With 200,000 consumption points and more than 30 series of measurements read several times each day, Skagerak generates huge amounts of data. To deliver the processing power the company required for its data-intensive critical applications, IBM tailored a solution designed for exceptional performance and high availability to replace Skagerak’s existing database appliances. Using the IBM Power® System E950 and IBM FlashSystem solutions integrated with IBM POWER9® processors, the company saw performance increases that were 5–11 times faster than the company’s database appliance solution in several benchmarks.
“If you want to process the information, you need to have good source solutions with high I/O performance,” says Stein Ove Røv. “If we don’t get all the numbers from the consumption points, we have to predict based on some facts and data—maybe from last week or last year—and to do that you need crunching power, which is done by the IBM Power Systems platform with the IBM FlashSystem storage.”
Previously, several of the company’s processes were manual. But today, every household has automated metering that reports electricity use throughout the day, giving Skagerak the ability to quickly track consumption and get accurate predictions about how much hydroelectric power it needs to produce. The company also gathers weather data, rainfall measurements and several other data points that help it more efficiently produce and distribute energy.
Skagerak has miles and miles of powerlines to maintain, and Stein Ove Røv says its ability to better use data for predictive maintenance is important. The company currently uses helicopters and manpower to inspect powerlines but is looking to drones and virtual reality for remote monitoring of components and factories.
“Energy is changing quite fast,” he says. “Our goal is to build a solution that is stable, flexible, and can meet our future needs. That future is automation, and that’s a lot of data.”