Dell Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture User Manual
WHITE PAPER
Dell Technologies Grid Management
Platform Common Design Architecture
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................... 3
VIRTUALIZATION AND VXRAIL ................................................................ 4
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE ................................................................... 5
VMWARE VALIDATED DESIGN ................................................................. 6
GRID MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ................................................................ 6
A CASE STUDY ....................................................................................... 9
CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS ............................................................. 9
2 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
®
Runs on current state VxRail
v4.7 and VVD for NIST v5.1
Runs on current state VxRail
v4.7 and VVD for NIST v5.1
and manual NERC CIP
Runs on current state
vSphere-vSAN-NSX
leveraging NIST
conguration guidance
Runs on current state
vSphere-vSAN leveraging
NIST and NERC CIP
conguration guidance
Journey to Future State
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The utility industry is seeing unprecedented change in the utility grid, which is driven by a global
transition to renewable energy, faster uptake of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and the
need to support worldwide sustainability goals. The industry is undergoing an IT (Information
Technology)/OT (Operations Technology) convergence to support the migration from a rigid
OT-centric model to a more dynamic software dened, data-driven model.
The foundation for this IT/OT convergence is a robust enterprise-grade software-dened
data center (SDDC) that can extend from the data center (control center) to the near edge
(substation), capable of supporting cloud-native and legacy (Windows/Linux) x86 applications
on a single platform while providing intrinsic security, compliance, and lifecycle management.
The term SDDC or virtual infrastructure describes the decoupling of physical hardware
from the operating system(s) and application(s) leveraging the physical hardware. This
layer of abstraction between compute, storage and network hardware gives administrators
the advantage of managing pooled resources across the enterprise, allowing IT to be more
responsive and agile to organizational and business needs.
The journey to a virtualized Grid Data center (Control Center) and Edge (Substation) can be
an incremental process across both Grid Transmission and Distribution Operations in the Data
center or at the near Edge (Substation). Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel are providing
proven solutions to utility providers across four pillars (see Figure 1).
FIGURE 1. Transmission / Distribution Operations & Transmission / Distribution Substation
Virtualization of Grid
Virtualization of Grid
Distribution in the Data
Center (ADMS / OMS)
Transmission in the Data
Center (EMS)
Data center virtualization can be accomplished for both grid transmission and distribution
operations. Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel® are providing utility providers with both
non-NERC CIP (Distribution Operations) and NERC CIP (Transmission Operations) regulated
environments. The foundation for the data center deployment is a VMware Validated
Design (VVD) on the Dell EMC Hyperconverged VxRail infrastructure. The Dell EMC VxRail
infrastructure powered by Intel® is specically designed and built to fully leverage the VVD
Blueprint architecture. This can be further enhanced with the VVD for NIST 800-53 Compliance
Toolkit as a cybersecurity foundational baseline. With a few additional technology control
settings, the environment can be further extended to meet NERC CIP (North American Energy
Reliability Corporation – Critical Infrastructure Protection) compliance.
The product and services solution sets from Dell Technologies, VMware and Intel have been
curated for optimized performance and deployment into the substations and grid data centers.
3 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Technical Validation / Pilot
/ Deployment of
Virtualization for
Distribution Substation
®
Technical Validation / Pilot
/ Deployment of
Virtualization for
Transmission Substation
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