SCADA Hosting & Extension

Challenge:

Vital Energy is working to modernize its SCADA systems with the goals of enhanced reliability, scalability, and reduced maintenance overhead. Key priorities include improving network segregation, ensuring robust security, and optimizing the field user experience.

Solution (In Progress):

Vital Energy is actively designing and implementing a cloud-native architecture leveraging AWS services to modernize SCADA. The design features:

• Multiple VPCs for robust network segregation.
• Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform deployed on ECS with Fargate.
• Integration with RDS Aurora and EFS to reduce maintenance and improve scalability.
• AWS WAF for enhanced security in field HMI access.

Expected Outcomes:

• A scalable foundation to support future site acquisitions.
• Enhanced capabilities that improve customization and deliver a better user experience.
• Modernized architecture that exceeds operational and security requirements.
• Reduced SCADA platform maintenance overhead.
• End-to-end data ownership from field devices to the data lake, providing full visibility and control over data flow and operations.
• Autonomous insight and action capabilities that enable meaningful decisions and actions from field devices without human intervention, while also enhancing "human-in-the-loop" value where needed.

Challenge:
ARB Midstream faced a tough task of building a complete SCADA system for an oil pipeline with 37 sites within six months. This challenge was compounded by the need for hardware upgrades, creating a new network, and building a control room from scratch.

Solution: ARB Midstream partnered with system integrator Industrial Networking Solutions (INS) and leveraged a blend of cutting-edge technologies to meet the challenge. Key components of the solution included:

• AWS hosted SCADA solution with Ignition by Inductive Automation for HMI/SCADA, providing management, visibility, control, reporting, and edge computing capabilities.
• SD-WAN and software-defined networking for secure and reliable connectivity across multiple sites. Edge computing and MQTT technology from Cirrus Link Solutions for efficient data transfer over cellular networks.

Impact:

• Project completed before the six-month deadline, enabling ARB Midstream to begin operating the 900-mile pipeline system.
• AWS hosted SCADA solution and SD-WAN architecture set a new standard for future projects.
• MQTT technology significantly reduced data-plane utilization by up to 35%, enabling efficient communication over cellular networks.
• System offered scalability, allowing ARB Midstream to easily integrate future asset acquisitions and support growth.
   
  

Challenge:
Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE) needed a reliable and secure system to collect data from multiple locations, provide centralized access to this data for compliance reporting and operational insights, and support data sharing with external companies while maintaining data segregation.

Solution:
Two separate hub-and-spoke Ignition systems were implemented. The first system, hosted on AWS, handled compliance reporting data, MQTT transmission, and a VPC with EC2 instances for data distribution, storage and access. The second system, specific to RAE, captured process data for operational insights, with site-level Ignition servers transmitting data via MQTT to a central server for data distribution and access.

Impact:

• Reduced compliance reporting effort through centralized data access.
• Facilitated secure data sharing and centralized management across multiple locations.
• Enabled daily operational insights and process optimization for RAE.
• Provided a secure, reliable, and expandable network for data capture and access.