Fabian Wiese, Lead Solution Engineer, VMware
In order for energy companies to modernise, they must undergo a comprehensive transformation. VMware is committed to providing adequate support for this transformation with sustainable technology solutions – because resilience at the IT level can only be achieved by modernising IT systems and providing comprehensive services.
Digital transformation and the need for sustainable production solutions and business models affect almost every industry in different ways. The energy and utility industry is also under more pressure than ever to prepare for a digital and sustainable future. VMware is a company known primarily for IT virtualisation and virtual machines. However, our portfolio goes far beyond that, and recent years have shown this in numerous projects worldwide – in particular for groups in the energy industry.
An example of this is our collaboration with the Drax Group, a power plant operator and great innovator in the area of renewable energy in Great Britain with the ambitious goal of achieving climate neutrality with cost-effective energy by 2030. The focus was on application modernisation and IT security. Using the Tanzu Management Framework, Drax Group has built a more flexible infrastructure capable of responding more quickly to changing requirements. In addition, the company now consolidates disparate data sources to make optimal decisions.
But what are the most suitable issues and parameters to move companies in the energy and utilities industry forward and driving their modernisation and digitisation?
Transforming the power grid – modernising IT
Many companies have a huge number of existing facilities for energy production and distribution. However, their different requirements often don’t fit together well in terms of IT technology. As part of the modernisation of IT networks, that means the comprehensive modernisation of underlying infrastructure at the digital level. VMware, with its Tanzu Labs program, is ready to optimise and modernise any legacy application, making it available in any environment.
In order to develop an appropriate roadmap for this, it is first necessary to take stock of the situation. Part of that assessment is the analysis of the applications that exist, where they are located, how and in what way they interact with other units. Only when the interactions between the various applications have been clarified can work start on determining how to modernise them based on the features and solutions needed in the future. Here, the development and operations teams (possibly in cooperation with a service provider or consulting company) decide whether an existing application will be transferred one-to-one to the cloud, undergo modernisation in the form of a cloud-native application, or even whether it is to be provided as a software-as-a-service solution. Within the scope of such a project, developers can also be given guidance on how modern DevOps methods can be used for this purpose.
Currently, many companies in the energy industry still rely on monolithic applications consisting of the typical three layers of database, middleware, and frontend. Simply transferring such an application or service to the cloud without changing anything about it is comparatively easy, but may not meet future requirements. From the point of view of flexibility, it can make more sense to update specific applications as part of a modernisation process, possibly even combining them. Adding business value in this way will be the challenge for many companies in the coming years.
IT security as a critical element for success in the energy sector
Security issues are also a particular challenge, especially in the energy industry, as these are often plants that fall within the scope of critical infrastructures as defined by the BSI’s Critical Infrastructure Ordinance. One thing is certain: no utility today is truly safe from targeted cyberattacks or other malware attacks that cannot be adequately addressed with traditional IT security methods.
In 2022, a study by the IT industry association Bitkom identified a professionalisation of attacks, putting the damage caused to the German economy by theft of IT equipment and data, espionage, and sabotage at some 203 billion euros. The attacks came from organised crime in 51 percent of the companies affected. A large part of the damage, according to other statements, goes unreported due to shame. The energy industry – ever since Stuxnet – has traditionally been the target of attacks and must expect an increasing number of incidents.
This gives us an idea of how crucial the right safety strategy will be for power plant operators in the future. VMware can provide answers here with intrinsic security strategies like Zero-Trust security approaches. This concept restricts access to IT resources using strict identity and device verification processes, only ever granting the minimum rights required for a given function. This results in the best possible security with regard to processes, application data, and endpoints – and helps to ensure that energy producers are not at the mercy of organised crime in the future.
In addition to traditional IT, which already has a high level of protection, operational technology (OT) has a particular need for protection. In many cases, this is the Achilles’ heel of the energy industry, and it is difficult to secure. Particularly in view of the large number of connected service providers and the high degree of networking, there are attack surfaces and risks that the industry will have to face more than ever in the future. This is true for both the individual power plants and the entire distribution grid.
Edge computing as an enabler for many data-intensive services
It is also clear, however, that in the future not every process will take place in the data centre or in the cloud, for example in the connection of the vehicle with charging stations and the electric vehicle charging infrastructure that supplies them. Particularly the immense amount of data will therefore be partly processed at the edge, meaning in the device itself, and only transferred to the cloud in a processed and batched form. VMware is also a strategic partner for edge computing, understanding the need for issues such as scalability, security, and real-time data management, as well as global applications and infrastructure management. This will also enable VMware to accelerate and secure the rollout of EV charging infrastructure accordingly, not only opening up a future-proof platform for utilities, but also driving the growth of e-mobility.
VMware can help accelerate the exchange between devices. After all, grid modernisation can only be implemented successfully if the partners involved communicate reliably in near real time. Decades of experience in virtualisation allow VMware to bring sufficient expertise and the appropriate processes to the table. Reliable management of those processes is essential for public acceptance of the new technologies.
Towards greater sustainability and efficiency with virtualisation
VMware’s virtualisation and automation technologies, in concert with a future-proof edge infrastructure, can lead energy and utility companies into a digital future. Targeted modernisation and safeguarding of IT and OT ensure flexible and efficient, and above all secure, operation. This makes it easier to scale and adapt the business and its associated operations to the challenges of an ever-changing market. VMware is at the side of energy companies on their journey toward greater sustainability and efficiency.
