The global oil and gas industry is currently in a cycle of constrained economics driven by price pressure and yet it faces increased regulation. The challenge is driving efficiencies to control costs in the face of this increasing oversight, in a sustainable way. Automation systems are a key area where investment can generate rapid returns through a variety of optimizations. However, whether you’re a gathering company, a pipeline transmission company or a local gas company – when your operational systems fail, you are exposed to safety threats, compliance violations, inaccurate balancing and a host of other issues. These disruptions can have major economic, safety and societal impacts when something goes wrong.
Conventional servers don’t solve the problem
The supervisory and operational layers of an oil and gas process control system are the most critical areas of maintaining efficient and cost effective operation. Failure of these systems, for even short periods of unplanned downtime, creates a whole host of problems with resulting economic, regulatory and even life threatening impacts. Many oil and gas companies have tried but failed to solve these problems with conventional servers running critical applications such as SCADA and historian in multiple locations. Downtime problems continually plague this approach and it doesn’t scale.
The proven solution is a virtualized platform that is always on. Virtualization allows you to run more applications on one platform. Instead of a 1:1 server to application ratio, virtualization supports a one to many server to application ratio saving you money in infrastructure costs. But the more applications you have running on any one platform, the more important that platform becomes. That’s why virtualization on its own isn’t enough. The virtualized platform needs to be fully protected from downtime.
Dedicated availability solutions for oil and gas
Stratus is the modern, proven and reliable choice for oil and gas providers to deliver a complete always-on oil and gas pipeline system with a solution that is cost effective and delivers the efficiencies oil and gas companies demand today.
With simple installation, a heritage of providing continuous availability for oil and gas, ease of service and a lifespan aligned with the needs of operational systems, Stratus solutions provide a holistic approach to delivering remote, virtualized applications without data loss, or the need for on-site IT expertise.
When combined with virtualization expertise, operational system knowledge, strong partnerships with leading providers such as Wonderware, GE Digital and Rockwell Automation, and an understanding of the increasing importance of emerging capabilities (such as analytics) driven by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the result is cost-effective deployment, increased efficiency and the returns demanded by today’s economic environment.
Oil & gas resources
Albian Sands Energy Inc.
Albian Sands Energy Inc. runs the oil sands mining operation at the Muskeg River Mine located 75 kilometers north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. In oil sands mining, a mix......
Balance the Imbalance in Real-Time
A natural gas gathering and treating company was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in imbalance sheet accounting due to its inability to accurately monitor data from the......
Crisis prevention for gas distribution
Eight people dead, thirty-five homes leveled, a wall of fire more than 1,000 feet high, plunging stock prices and a law suit. That was the result of a gas explosion......
Dependable Gas Transmission
A catastrophic failure at a compressor station of a large natural gas pipeline company and resulting fire caused nearly $600,000 in damages and lost natural gas. Fortunately, the rural location......
Increase Operational Efficiency with Modern SCADA
After going through a period of growth, the oil and natural gas industry in the United States is now experiencing one of the most transformative periods in its history. Oil......
Virtualization for Dummies Special eBook, 3rd Edition
Virtualization technology is being widely applied today with excellent operational and financial results. It’s become a matter of course for most businesses to work with some aspect of virtualization. Virtualization......
Columbia Pipeline case study
Columbia Pipeline Group relies on Stratus to help ensure the availability of their infrastructure that transports natural gas to a wide variety of industries. These include hospitals, manufacturing, as well......
ESG Solution Showcase: Stratus ftServer Enhances VMware High Availability
Organizations today are more dependent on their IT resources than ever. As a result, IT teams are transforming their data centers through server virtualization, even as they face increasing pressure......
The high availability journey
99% sounds pretty complete in theory, but imagine if only 99% of your orders shipped. For IT, 99% availability translates into 1 hour and 41 minutes of downtime per week. That’s about......