ABB increases power, agility, and economy of energy management by moving to HP Integrity servers

“Working together for almost 30 years, ABB and HP have continuously brought state-of-the-artsolutions to the utility industry. As energyproviders face new challenges, we are alwaysevolving to anticipate and meet their changingrequirements. Today, energy companies requirethe capacity to process ever-larger volumes ofdata in real time and extend the real-time,always-on way of working in their control roomsthroughout their operations. Our move to next-generation HP Integrity servers enables us tobring energy companies these advantages.”–Rafael Ochoa, Vice President, Sales, NetworkManagement Systems, ABB Inc.

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ABB, a leader in power and automation technologies,recently collaborated with HP to transition its ABBNetwork Manager energy management solution from HP AlphaServer computers running the HP Tru64 UNIX®

operating system to HP Integrity servers based on Intel®

Itanium® 2 processors and equipped with the HP-UX 11ioperating system. Running on these next-generation HP servers, the ABB solution increases the performance,security, and efficiency of both energy and informationmanagement—advantages that help utilities adapt andcompete in an increasingly dynamic industry.

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologiesthat enable utilities to improve performance whilelowering environmental impact. Its solutions managemany of the world’s largest power generation,transmission, and distribution operations.

ABB and HP have been serving the energy industrytogether for almost three decades. HP provides theoperating systems and servers that run ABB solutions. A provider of turnkey systems, ABB configures, stages, and tests each customer’s solution at its own facility andthen installs, integrates, and tests the configuration at thecustomer site.

ABB’s relationship with HP encompasses its entire productline, including central-market solutions from its facility inSanta Clara, California; outage management systemsdeveloped at the ABB plant in Raleigh, North Carolina;and ABB Network Manager, engineered and supportedby its unit in Sugar Land, Texas. A comprehensive energymanagement system (EMS), ABB Network Managerincludes supervisory control and data acquisition(SCADA), distribution management, and outagemanagement applications.

ABB (www.abb.com) recently collaborated with HP to transition ABB Network Manager from the HPAlphaServer platform running the HP Tru64 UNIXoperating system to HP Integrity servers equipped with the HP-UX 11i operating system.

Based on the Intel Itanium processor architecture, HP Integrity servers combine the flexibility and economyof their industry-standard hardware platform with theperformance, reliability, and security of the industry-leading HP-UX 11i operating system. With Integrityservers, energy providers can respond to operationalevents in real time and efficiently keep pace with the vastamount of data required by regulatory, security, andgovernance mandates.

“Working together for almost 30 years, ABB and HP have continuously brought state-of-the-art solutions to the utility industry,” says Rafael Ochoa, vice president ofsales at ABB Network Management Systems. “As energyproviders face new challenges, we are always evolving to anticipate and meet their changing requirements.Today, energy companies require the capacity to processever-larger volumes of data in real time and extend thereal-time, always-on way of working in their control rooms

throughout their operations. Our move to next-generationHP Integrity servers enables us to bring energy companiesthese advantages.”

Adapting to evolving customer needs—and technologies“Formerly, utilities took pride in operating one-of-a-kindsystems,” says Neela Mayur, director of productdevelopment and product manager for SCADA/EMS at ABB Network Management. “But now our customersprefer standardized products to simplify ongoingmaintenance and upgrades and more easily integratedata within corporate information technology (IT)infrastructures. They want decision-makers to accessproduction data without depleting the performance orsecurity of real-time operations. In this highly competitivemarket, they require flexibility and economy.

“Our long-term platform provider, HP, has strongpartnerships with electric utilities and serves virtually all of the largest players,” Mayur continues. “As HP replacesits AlphaServer line with next-generation HP Integritytechnology, we want to bring our customers in line withHP’s long-term plans as well as the price/performancebenefits, which can reduce their hardware costs.”

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As an EMS, ABB Network Manager performs processing-intensive, real-time operations. The system scans hundredsof thousands of digital field devices that monitor output in transformers and power lines every few seconds,depending on the utility’s infrastructure. Its database maycontain 60,000 measurements, data that the systemexchanges with the utility’s independent system operator(ISO) or generation partners. A generation control modulemaintains power flow to the scheduled level, monitoringand balancing consumption against generation every two seconds while optimizing cost. Another modulesupports contingency analysis and planning, enablingoperators to graphically model potential impacts of afailure. The system also forecasts demand by the hour,tracking weather and applying algorithms based on past usage statistics.

“Bringing all of this complex, real-time functionality to anew UNIX environment was a challenge,” says Mayur,who oversaw execution of the project and consulted withthe HP project manager weekly by phone. “ABB NetworkManager is tied to the operating system. Its kernel isreliant on UNIX services.

“Our customers value the engineering integrity and closecollaboration of our two companies,” continues Mayur,“and these strengths guided our transition to the HP-UX11i environment. Both ABB and HP applied excellentdesign, integration, and support skills. When weencountered problems, knowledgeable HP people helped us figure out how we could achieve the bestsolutions with minimal change on our side.”

Extended virtual team mines HP resourcesWorking with HP, ABB completed the software transitionon schedule, in April 2005. HP provided all of theresources that ABB needed to convert its software and to adopt both a new hardware architecture and a newoperating system.

“The long-term relationship between our companiesshaped our joint project to port ABB Network Manager,”says John McDaniel, director of services at ABB NetworkManagement. “HP has always been a good provider ofboth hardware and support. HP helps us win customerprojects and then supports us in keeping the customerhappy after delivery. We knew HP would ensure oursuccess with this critical project.

“Superb project management and collaboration enabledus to access high-caliber resources throughout HPseamlessly and deliver a high-quality implementation on schedule,” continues McDaniel, who supervised theplanning and startup of the project. “Now, we can bringour customers the advantages of HP’s next-generationIntegrity platform, which include superior value, reliability,flexibility, and performance for large-scale, mission-criticalsystems such as ours.”

As a first step, stakeholders from the two companiesparticipated in a Transition Consulting Workshop, aservice offered by the HP Alpha RetainTrust program.

“We all walked away with confidence that the conversionwas possible within schedule,” says McDaniel, “alongwith a shared awareness of expected problems and agoal to make architecture decisions that minimized theamount of code we’d have to port.

“We also defined our rules of engagement,” McDanielcontinues. “HP put together a core design team to handleall the hard technical questions and meet with us face-to-face, and an extended virtual team of specialized expertsto provide support on an as-needed basis via e-mail orphone. We would manage prompt resolution of issuesthrough weekly conference calls with action items.”

HP headed its virtual team with a dedicated projectmanager who, together with HP’s ABB account team,coordinated the participation of HP personnel. Theflexible virtual-team model encouraged collaboration and innovation as ABB and HP personnel workedtogether to solve problems large and small.

“The software we write does lots of bit-level comparisons,”says McDaniel, “and the code was not portable. Weknew this was an obstacle. Otherwise, we were not tooconcerned about the conversion. We published theproblem via e-mail to our HP team, who promptlyprovided us with tools to analyze our binary files andidentify incompatibilities, saving us a lot of time.”

Challenge

• Help energy companies keep pace withdata-intensive regulatory, security, andgovernance mandates

• Provide price/performance benefits ofnext-generation servers

• Reduce cost and complexity of ongoing IToperations

• Increase agility of IT to capitalize oncontinuous innovations in IT and energymanagement

ResultsSolution

• Transition of ABB Network Manager toHP Integrity servers running HP-UX 11ioperating system

• HP project management

• HP support throughout all phases ofsoftware and hardware transition viacore team and specialized subgroups

• HP Alpha RetainTrust program resources,including

– Transition Consulting Workshop

– HP Tru64 UNIX Software Transition Kit

– binaryScan for Tru64 UNIX

• Joint ABB-HP team completes high-qualitytransition on schedule

• HP Integrity server platform processesdata-intensive applications faster and atlower cost

• HP Integrity server architecture reducescost and complexity of IT management

• Combining industry-standard economyand flexibility with HP-UX robustness, theIntegrity platform can increase efficiencyand agility of energy management

For more information, visit www.hp.com.

© 2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statementsaccompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the UnitedStates and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

4AA0-0758ENW, 07/2005

Supplementing the HP core team were specialized subgroups. For example, an HP team worked with ABB engineers to make sure that the new platform metcustomers’ availability requirements by prototyping and benchmarking a fast-failover feature within HP Serviceguard clustering software. A group of HP device driver experts helped the supplier of ABB’s existing device driver port its product to the HP-UX 11i operating system.

Another HP subgroup worked with ABB engineers tointegrate the HP-UX 11i remote installation tool, HP IgniteIgnite-UX, within the Network Manager environment. “We have to remotely install operating systems andlayered applications as well as ongoing patches andupgrades,” says McDaniel. “Manual processes wouldtake hours and add quite a bit to our staging costs.Instead, with HP Ignite, we push a button. HP providedthe expertise to make it work.”

Honing server performance and value to power moreefficient energy management “Efficient CPU performance is a priority for ourcustomers,” says McDaniel. “Running Network Manageron the Integrity platform, our customers can gain fasterexecution of applications on smaller, lower-cost servers.”

Honing all software components to take full advantage ofthe high-performance Integrity server environment, thejoint team tested enhanced C++ and Fortran compilers,improved Tru64 UNIX application migration tools, andexpanded the HP-UX 11i library of APIs.

By advancing IT power and flexibility, HP Integrity serverscan help energy companies capitalize on opportunities toincrease the efficiency and agility of energy management.

“Expectations continually rise in our industry,” concludesMcDaniel. “Transactions that took 30 minutes 10 yearsago now happen every two seconds. Advances in ITaffect the way our customers approach the problem of managing power grids, from how they configuregeneration and load capacity to decisions about network stability and security and recovery strategies. HP simplifies the transition to next-generationmanagement of information—and energy.”