Electric Energy T&D - Index

Electric Energy T&D - EE Magazine March / April - Index

The Challenge
In the 1990s Entergy developed tools inhouse
to pull different types of data out of
the operational SCADA system, store it and/or
share it to various departments. One in-house
tool in particular has been used by hundreds
of internal users for day-to-day equipment
monitoring and viewing of historical data.
A valuable feature of the in-house solution,
however, was that it stored all of the data, all
the time. Unlike solutions that require values
to be selected and saved ahead of time, this
system stored all the data so that it all could
be examined anytime, after the fact.
Yet although the in-house developed tools
were a popular success, they had limitations
in terms of functionality and reliability. For
example, there was no reasonable ability to
systematically obtain and analyze the data
Mining the Corporate Data
Domain Safely and Securely
Across the Enterprise
By Paul Cassingham, Entergy Services, Inc.
David Allen, Nobadeer Software
In these times of increasingly stringent regulatory compliance reporting by publicly-held utilities like Entergy Services Inc. in New Orleans,
Louisiana, the transmission and distribution (T&D) department requires an auditable and reliable source of historical data with no gaps.
However, besides conventional database requirements, they also needed an auditable source for the database metadata; that is, the descriptions
of the data contained in the database.
Moreover, the various departments within T&D often have divergent needs for SCADA numerical and alarm data. For instance, system planners
need SCADA numerical data – typically hourly data organized by feeder – to determine future system construction requirements. Likewise,
the maintenance staff needs near real-time data and alarms to closely monitor equipment in need of maintenance so that in the event of a
malfunction or failure, they can react quickly to resolve any problems. Finally, the operations department needs near real-time data and related
alarms as well as numerical data to ensure that the system is operating normally and to identify potential overloads or other system anomalies
when planning system changes.
Lastly, the ability to meet all of these demands for data in a timely manner without allowing direct access to the operational Energy Management
System data was of paramount importance to Entergy from an EMS security standpoint. After searching the marketplace for a solution that
could satisfy all of these requirements, Entergy selected Pegasus RDS TM , a real-time data store, provided by Nobadeer Software Inc. of
Longmeadow, Massachusetts.
programmatically outside the original user
interface; the biggest reliability issue was a
lack of data feed redundancy, which resulted
in gaps in the data – a serious deficiency.
Looking for Answers
In 003 Entergy made the decision to replace
the in-house tools with an industrial quality
application that would meet its functionality
and reliability goals. Existing data historians
were examined and found to be good generalpurpose
systems that require the user to
re-define and remap their data into a new
framework.
Given Entergy’s resource constraints and the
frequency of database updates, the additional
burden of remapping large data sets wasn’t
deemed practical. Instead, a system that
was tightly integrated with the existing
6 I March-April 2008 Issue
SCADA system was needed to avoid undue
maintenance and duplication of effort.
The Solution
After researching suitable products among
qualified vendors in the marketplace, Entergy
selected Nobadeer Software to develop a
technical solution based on the desired
functionality and the following set of real
world objectives:
• Capture all of the data, all the time.
• Zero maintenance required.
• Keep unauthorized personnel out of the
security perimeter.
• Provide programmatic access to the
data store.
• Incorporate modern application development
standards thereby providing stability,
resiliency, and robustness in the platform.