Pipeline Communications Over SD-WAN
Application: Resilient remote SCADA for optimized infrastructure in midstream oil and gas operations.
Industry: Oil and Gas
Introduction
Midstream Company provides midstream oil and gas solutions throughout vast geographic regions in North America. The company decided to shift away from costly satellite WAN links by deploying a flexible dual LTE architecture when rolling out their new cloud SCADA solution for their assets. Employing two major North American Mobile Network Operators ensured that the company’s site deployments would be successful and resilient in providing cellular connectivity quickly to business-critical equipment.
This connectivity strategy in concert with industry-leading SD-WAN technology allowed Midstream Company to react immediately to a quickly evolving and highly competitive market.
System Requirements
By using a SD-WAN overlay, Midstream Company only required outbound Internet connectivity SIMs on both carriers.
Data usage projections from carrier to carrier were not easily predictable since the cellular router communication path could change based on configured parameters and observed RF signal metrics. Multiple carrier flexibility and pooling was a necessity.
Solve Networks Solution
Solve Networks offered a cellular connectivity profile that complemented Midstream Company’s selected SD-WAN technology. The availability of multiple cellular provisioning options allowed the company to optimize latency while leveraging the router vendor SD-WAN technology for inbound access needs.
Solve Networks was able to quickly onboard Midstream Company operations into different cost center setups to assist with accounting tracking based on the separate midstream assets in play.
Solve Networks was able to provide a right-sized rate plan based on a “per site” basis as opposed to a “per SIM basis” as each site deployed a SIM from each carrier.
Solve Networks was able to provide multiple carriers service pooled together. This means the customer can leverage both major carriers and doesn’t have to worry about which one is being used and counting data across the two. They pick the strongest signal and don’t have to worry about which network is being utilized.
