Design and Application of Converged Infrastructure through Virtualization Technology in Grid Operation Control Center in North Eastern Region of India

Modern day grid operation requires multiple interlinked applications and many automated processes at control center for monitoring and operation of grid. Information technology integrated with operational technology plays a critical role in grid operation. Computing resource requirements of these software applications varies widely and includes high processing applications, high Input/Output (I/O) sensitive applications and applications with low resource requirements. Present day grid operation control center uses various applications for load despatch schedule management, various real-time analytics & optimization applications, post despatch analysis and reporting applications etc. These applications are integrated with Operational Technology (OT) like Data acquisition system / Energy management system (SCADA/EMS), Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) etc. This paper discusses various design considerations and implementation of converged infrastructure through virtualization technology by consolidation of servers and storages using multi-cluster approach to meet high availability requirement of the applications and achieve desired objectives of grid control center of north eastern region in India. The process involves weighing benefits of different architecture solution, grouping of application hosts, making multiple clusters with reliability and security considerations, and designing suitable infrastructure to meet all end objectives. Reliability, enhanced resource utilization, economic factors, storage and physical node selection, integration issues with OT systems and optimization of cost are the prime design considerations. Modalities adopted to minimize downtime of critical systems for grid operation during migration from the existing infrastructure and integration with OT systems of North Eastern Regional Load Despatch Center are also elaborated in this paper.