In this blog series, I’m looking at the seven reasons utility providers trust Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure with their network models. A few posts back, I discussed how the application and IT architecture of our utility network solutions are design for optimal performance and scalability. With a similar thought in mind, I’ll look at the reliability of our utility solutions in the installment. Let’s get started.
Operates in Stable Environment
In my previous blog post, I talked about Intergraph G/Technology being a good database citizen. One key to this is the idea of long-term transactions. We discussed how a designer can take several hours, days, or weeks to work on the design and that those changes need to be separate from those of other engineers. All data, master and job, is stored in the database. The access to the data is controlled by Oracle views over the database tables. A user can view multiple jobs at one time and make edits to the primary job. The posting of data, making additions and changes part of the permanent model, is done through a single database procedure. Long-term transactions are implemented by using standard database technology. With the job data in the database, enterprise reports can be easily written against the database views and the context changed to report on only master data or any combination of master and job data. The views always return a single instance of the data. Finally, users have hierarchical jobs, the splitting of jobs into multiple jobs and seeing job-on-job.
Limits End-user Downtime
I spent a lot time discussing scalability of the G/Technology solution. In our testing with large databases, we have seen automated test tool response times similar to when there was no load on the system. This is due to G/Technology being a good Oracle citizen. Because of this, there are few times that the database needs to be re-started. Although not classified as a 24/7 solution, we often see that type of reliability because of our database design and architecture. Also due to our long-term transaction mechanism, all edits and inserts are automatically posted. Only the current record being edited would be lost due to failure. All other edits are saved in the master database as a job.
History of Reliability
One thing that we are proud of at Hexagon, is our history with the utilities and communications industry. Founded in 1969, Intergraph secured its first utility customers in the 1970s. We have moved customers from VAX to Unix and from Unix to Windows. In some cases, we have been the only vendor our customers have known. As Hexagon, we are proud of this legacy and how we have shaped the change that we have seen in our industry.
If you would like to know more about the reliability of our utility network management solutions, contact me. Or visit our utility products page. Tune in next week, where I will discuss the benefits of a single-vendor solution.
