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
Joint partnerships with the leading utility software vendors who provide both EMS (Energy
Data Center (Control Center)
Substation (Edge)
Software Dened
(SD Layer)
Physical Layer
NSX
NSX
All-Flash-vSAN
All-Flash-vSAN
ESXi-Hypervisor
ESXi-Hypervisor
Software Dened Networking (SDN)
Software Dened Storage (SDS)
Software Dened Compute (SDC)
Management System) and ADMS (Advanced Distributed Management System) solutions have
been formed to further validate their specic application portfolios on the Dell Technologies,
VMware and Intel infrastructure platforms.
FIGURE 2. Dell Technologies and VMware Data Center and Edge Congurations
The remainder of this document is focused on the denition of a common design architecture
for deployment of a hyperconverged infrastructure platform at the data center called a Grid
Management Platform (GMP). This document describes the details of how Dell Technologies,
Intel and VMware are partnering to deliver solutions to assist Electric Utilities with the
challenges associated with implementing transformational grid management platform
modernization projects and the associated business impact.
The utility grid has been undergoing a fundamental change from a rigid Operations Technology
(OT) centric one-way energy ow model, to a more dynamic two-way, data-driven model
supporting intermittent renewable resources and exible customer loads. As a result, managing
energy on the grid has become increasingly complex, necessitating more ecient solutions to
manage peak demand and maintain reliability. Importantly, they also need a modern distributed
architecture and analytics capabilities to take full advantage of the data collected to deliver
real-time insights that meet changing business demands. To manage the grid in this increasingly
complex environment, utility leaders are adopting new digital transformation technologies.
These transformation projects which in the past would have taken ve to seven years are being
reduced to a year or two. This has resulted in a rapid convergence of operations technology
(OT) and Information Technology (IT) organizations where innovative technologies brought
forward from IT departments and other back oce functions are being leveraged by the
business to become more responsive to the changing utilities market.
CURRENT CHALLENGES FACING UTILITIES
∙ Modernize legacy infrastructure and
application silos
∙ Improve cybersecurity capabilities
∙ Meet regulatory compliance requirements
∙ Improve reliability and resiliency
∙ Automate grid process operations
∙ Become more data driven
∙ Adopt and integrate DERs (distributed energy
resources)
∙ Reduce greenhouse gases
4 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
VIRTUALIZATION AND VXRAIL
As the introduction section of this paper indicated, many utilities have turned to virtualization
of critical grid management applications to help streamline operations and reduce expenses
while enhancing reliability. The virtualization of these utility systems enables the decoupling
®
of application and hardware refresh cycles, delivering non-disruptive updates and reduced
Automated
Deployment
Simple
Expansions
Automated
Upgrades
Built-In
Security
Application
Optimized
total cost of operations (TCO). The adoption of virtualized Hyperconverged Infrastructure
(HCI) models removes the dependencies on Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Fiber Channel
components using a software dened storage conguration integrated into and delivered by
VxRail HCI nodes. Utilities can now eliminate the capital expense (CapEx) and operational
expense (OpEx) spending associated with procuring and maintaining separate storage area
networks (SAN), and redirect resources to more value-add activities.
The Dell Technologies VxRail HCI platform powered by Intel automates and eliminates
many manual administrative and maintenance activities for a drastically improved lifecycle
management capability, that lowers total cost of ownership while enhancing data security,
compliance, and data protection services. Infrastructure patching is now automated, and system
upgrades no longer require planned downtime.
The VxRail platform includes VMware’s software dened data center SDDC architecture.
Specic system components included are VMware’s vSphere hypervisor with vCenter, VSAN
software dened storage and VxRail Manager for low touch, remote administration. Automated
deployment, operations and lifecycle management features makes the VxRail a simple and
scalable platform for the next generation of grid management platform software. The VxRail
solution includes several built-in security features (data at rest encryption, IDPA integration) to
ensure a high level of reliability and protection from cyber-attacks. VxRail also oers a single
support organization to handle all hardware and software support. (See Figure 3.)
FIGURE 3. VxRail Automated Infrastructue, the Next Generation of Grid Management Platform
5 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
The Utility Industry is a critical industry that requires Standards and Regulations to ensure
safe, secure, and reliable Grid Operations. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation
(NERC) is a not-for-prot authority governed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC). NERC’s primary goal is to ensure the reliability of the Bulk Electric System (BES)
in North America. This is done through the identication and protection of approved Critical
Infrastructure Protection (CIP) assets for improved regulatory accountability of Grid Operations.
The critical component in deploying infrastructure is a standardized methodology that provides
an enhanced level of consistency to improve People / Process / Technology. Risk is mitigated by
deploying in the environment leveraging a repeatable common design that incorporates internal
guiding principles and external security and compliance sources like NIST and NERC CIP. This
is enhanced with security constructs developed specically for virtualized environments to
develop a highly secure, zero trust architecture for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) and
beyond.
®
VMWARE VALIDATED DESIGN
The Dell Technologies and VMware vision for the Utility Industry is a single infrastructure
platform that can run in the control center and at the near-edge or substation. This provides a
single platform capable of supporting both legacy (Windows / Linux) systems and cloud native
container applications with intrinsic security, compliance, and lifecycle management.
VMware recognizes the need for cybersecurity hygiene and partnering with Regulatory bodies
such as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). VMware demonstrated the
VMware Validated Design (think reference architecture) for NIST as the security baseline for
Grid Transmission and Distribution. VMware is currently working to pivot NERC CIP compliance
on top of NIST providing a strong security and compliance framework for utilities.
GRID MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
A new term that is emerging is Grid Management System.2 The term is meant to convey the
concept of the “System of Systems.” The term Grid Management System (GMS) is meant to
encompass EMS (Energy Management System), ADMS (Advanced Distributed Management
System), OMS (Outage Management System) and other Grid Transmission and Distribution
Operations Management solutions.
As the proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) continues to increase, modernization
of the Grid Distribution Operations infrastructure is needed to provide operators with improved
tools for ecient Grid Operations while meeting required regulatory and operational standards.
This requires increased levels of grid automation technology and the integration of the grid
systems with Information Technology (IT) systems.
The adoption of virtualization within the utility grid is at both the control center and the
substation. Virtualization of the control center is focused on virtualizing Grid Management
Systems that run in the data center. As ADMS grid technologies evolve, they will provide the
next-generation control capabilities such as management of Distributed Energy Resources
(DERs), feeder automation, edge IoT Analytics and battery storage optimization for improved
eciency at the near edge (substation). The result of a single platform that can extend from
data center to edge is tighter integration with utility tools to maintain overall grid reliability. This
global ADMS market is being driven by several key factors such as the increase in demand
for energy, the need for improved customer service and increased grid eciency. In addition,
sustainability demands are driving the industry towards net-zero carbon footprint strategies,
while consumers are demanding increased cost savings.
Dell Technologies and VMware are partnering with the leading GMS solution vendors to develop
the industry’s rst turnkey GMS appliances engineered to address Grid Modernization. Based
on the VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure platform and the VMware Validated Design (VVD)
for NIST and our guidance on NERC-CIP regulatory compliance, this appliance is designed
to perform optimally for the GMS solutions, speed the time to production, improve reliability
and reduce overall total cost of ownership, while also improving the security prole and
industry regulatory compliance of the IT Grid T&D (Transmission and Distribution) Operations
infrastructure.
6 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
®
Quality Assurance Environment
Data Replication
Production Environment
Data Replication
Internal Firewalls
Internal Firewalls
Access Services (DMZ)
Access Services (DMZ)
Access Services (DMZ)
Access Services (DMZ)
QA Dev
QA Dev
Prod Staging
PDS/DTS
Prod Staging
External Firewalls
External Firewalls
Backup Data Center (BDC)
FIGURE 4. Standard VxRail Grid Management Platform Conguration
This all-in-one engineered appliance solution provides:
Corporate
WAN
• Reliability: The GMS workloads are deployed on the hyper converged VxRail
infrastructure platform from Dell Technologies, and tightly integrated virtualization software
components from VMware; designed exclusively for high performance and continuous
availability of the GMS software portfolio.
• Security: This common design architecture is based on VMware’s Validated Design for
NIST which provides an industry standard security baseline for the solution.
• Compliance: This VMware Validated Design also provides the conguration settings
required to meet NERC CIP regulatory compliance.
• Time to Production: Automated deployment and operations along with a standardized,
proven infrastructure platform drastically reduces the time to deploy new applications over
legacy non virtualized application stacks.
• Lower TCO: Historical analysis of IT organizations both large and small have gained 52%
reduction in cost of operations over traditional infrastructure deployments taken over a
ve-year period.¹
Dell Technologies has adopted a standard approach to delivering a virtualized GMS architecture
with VMWare and Intel. Characteristics of this approach include: VxRail Hyperconverged
Infrastructure. VMware Validated Design for NIST and NERC-CIP guidance. Identical congurations
are typically duplicated across a primary and secondary datacenter location for resiliency and to
maintain business continuity in the event of a disaster. Optimized for GMS solution performance
and throughput and reliability. A Dell Technologies Integrated Data Protection Appliance
(IDPA) or Data Domain data protection conguration for data backup and recovery are also
recommended. The installation of this conguration is managed and implemented with Dell
ProDeploy professional services and ongoing support is provided with Dell Technologies Mission
Critical hardware and software one call support. (see Figure 5 and Figure 6.)
7 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
®
Grid Management Application Workloads
ADMS - SCADA, DERMS Network Mngmt, OMS, Analytics
VMware Validated Design - SDDC
Dell ProDeploy Plus Service
Dell ProSupport Plus Support
High Level Data Center Architecture for GRID Modernization Workloads
Primary Data Center
Production
QA/Test
Production
QA/Test
Data
Application
FIGURE 5. Dell Technologies and VMware’s standard approach to GMP architecture
Grid Management Application Workloads
Platform Hardware
Platform Software
Advanced Distribution Manangement System (ADMS)
Distribution SCADA System
Outage Management System (OMS)
Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS)
Advanced Analytics
Energy Management System (EMS)
VxRail P-Series High
Performance Nodes
(2) Top of Rack Network
Switches 10gB
Out of Band Management
Switch (IDRAC)
Data Backup Device
24U Rack
Power Distribution Units
UPS (optional)
Compute and storage
nodes
Secure connection into
corporate network
Remote access for support
and administration
Data backup and recovery
Server and equipment rack
In-Rack power distribution
Uninterrupted Power System
UPS
Dell Technologies
vSphere
VSAN
VxRail Manager
Vrealize
Suite
System Hypervisor
Software Dened Storage
Administration
Self Service Automation and
Operations
VMware
Grid Modernization Solution Platform
UPS
VxRail HCI Nodes
Data Backup
Top Rack &
Management
Switch
Secondary Data Center
FIGURE 6. Dell Technologies and VMware’s standard components for GMP architecture
The benets of the Dell Technologies turnkey solution, all in one Grid Management Platform are
as follows:
• Virtualization improves reliability and supports rapid recovery
• Moving to a virtual HCI platform streamlines operations and reduces operational expense
• Proven HCI technologies like VxRail drive utility companies to move to advanced deployment
and lifecycle management through one click upgrades and automated VxRail Manager
capabilities
• Virtualization enhances data security, protection and recovery
• VMware Validated Design integrates best practices for design, setup and seamless migration
8 | Grid Management Platform Common Design Architecture | Dell Technologies, VMware, and Intel
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
to an HCI platform
®
A CASE STUDY
A large investor owned utility is on a journey to develop an electric grid that increases reliability
and supports the transition to a clean and sustainable energy future. They reviewed their
operations to identify opportunities to improve existing practices and leverage new and
emerging energy technologies to strengthen and modernize the grid. One technology that
oered them tremendous promise for increased grid reliability and system resilience is machine
virtualization in the bulk power system. Working in collaboration with Dell Technologies, VMware
and Intel they chose the VxRail HCI platform with VMware’s SDDC architecture designed for
regulated utilities as the platform architecture to standardize on for their grid management
application portfolio. They felt this technology oered a more resilient, cost-eective, and
reliable solution. By using standard IT practices, these systems become more redundant, more
automated with system and device backups, and more stable with minimal physical engineering.
To this end, they have partnered with Dell Technologies and VMware as their infrastructure
platform provider for their ongoing grid and substation modernization projects.
CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS
Transforming and modernizing the energy industry is at the forefront of utility operational
objectives. Traditional architectures in electric utilities are typically costly to maintain and
inexible. Utilities seeking to modernize the Grid and enhance situational awareness, require a
new approach, one that leverages a common, virtual architecture from the data center to the
edge providing more agility and higher levels of interoperability, security, and reliability.
This Common Design Architecture paper shows how the Dell Technologies, VMware and Intel
standard Grid Management Platform is leveraging emerging technologies to strengthen and
modernize the grid, to improve reliability, security and safety, and operational practices. The use
of machine virtualization in the electric utility grid is having a major impact on electric utilities’
operations, and VMware machine virtualization is the foundation of the Grid Management
Platform.
The Grid Management Platform solution and technology oers a more exible, cost-eective,
and dependable solution to deliver increased grid reliability and system resilience. Through
proven projects delivered to date, we have found there is clear ROI evidence in the electric
utility industry for moving away from today’s stand-alone, traditional grid architectures to a
virtualized architecture on a standardized Grid Management Platform. The benets are reduced
overall costs, including hardware, installation, engineering, and maintenance; server redundancy
and reliability; automated self-monitoring and alerting; and enhanced cybersecurity.
Please contact your Dell Technologies, VMware or Intel representative for more information on
how we can provide a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions, services, and partnerships
for electric utility companies to become agile and dynamic producers and suppliers of
increasingly clean, ecient resources.
1. IDC White Paper: Delivering Ecient Business Expansion with Dell EMC VMware based HCI, page 13; October 2018 authors: Eric Sheppard, Matthew Marden
2. Grid Management System – A Key Enabler of Grid Modernization https://smartgrid.ieee.org/newsletters/august-2019/grid-management-system-a-key-enabler-ofgrid-modernization.
© 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Intel®, the Intel logo and Xeon® are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective
owners. Reference number: H18551.
Dell Technologies believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.
Loading...