Power utilities are at a critical juncture. They are facing disruptive market forces that are forcing them to re-evaluate their current operations and business models. The rapid adoption of emerging technologies, such as renewable energy and electric vehicles, as well as innovative customer models entailed by new regulations, including demand-response, are exerting immense pressure on utilities.
To meet these challenges, utilities need to modernize their power grid and operations in order to maintain or improve power grid performance and reliability. At the same time, they must optimize electricity delivery efficiency. As a first step, utilities have compiled an extensive collection of customer usage data, employed grid monitoring and sensing — in addition to using big data analytics. Not surprisingly, an enormous amount of data has been collected, which needs to be securely stored and reliably processed in large data centers. On top of that, utilities have been scaling up compute and data storage capacity. As a result, they need to establish, as well as rehearse data back-up processes.
These processes ensure business continuity and data recovery. To use these processes efficiently, utilities are turning to data center interconnect (DCI) solutions to connect primary, backup, and remote data centers over secure network infrastructure. Utilities are also exploring new data center
virtualization architecture technologies and the use of Software-Defined Networking (SDN). These can improve data center efficiency, simplify operations, and increase agility. What’s more, power utilities are interested in understanding the value of data center virtualization and its role in securing cloudbased applications. This white paper provides an overview of existing and emerging DCI solutions to help utilities evaluate flexible, scalable and secure DCI solutions for the cloud-based era.