Responding to virtualization initiatives in the SCADA market, ClearCube Technology released SmartVMpod, a high availability compute and storage virtual machine platform for mission critical manufacturing, industrial and production environment deployments that are geo-distributed across many locations.
AUSTIN, TX – September 28, 2012 — Responding to virtualization initiatives in the SCADA market, ClearCube Technology released SmartVMpod, a high availability compute and storage virtual machine platform for mission critical manufacturing, industrial and production environment deployments that are geo-distributed across many locations.
“A significant ClearCube manufacturing customer wanted to replace 25-75 standalone PCs running SCADA and other applications at each of over 100 sites with high availability virtual machines that would operate uninterrupted,” said Jim Zakzeski, VP, Business Development and Marketing, ClearCube Technology. “We created a mini-datacenter with SmartVMpod that is designed for 24/7/365 operational uptime at a fraction of the cost of using failure-prone PCs coupled to SAN storage.”
A Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is a computer-based monitoring and control system that centrally collects, displays, and stores information from remotely-located data collection transducers and sensors to support the control of equipment, devices, and automated functions. SCADA architects have been slow to adopt virtualization, but ClearCube’s SmartVMpod’s acceptance by significant manufacturing customers is accelerating virtual machine adoption.
“An interesting dynamic was the geographic distribution of deploying these mini-datacenters at hundreds of locations. ClearCube created a configuration that could be manufactured and held constant over a period of years as new locations convert to high availability virtual machines,” said Zakzeski.
SmartVMpod features up to four compute nodes with Dual Hex-core Xeon processors with added performance from Solid State Drives (SSDs) and up to 384GB aggregated RAM.
SmartVMpod’s high availability profile is achieved with both hardware and software. The core compute nodes run VMware’s virtualized server software that migrates virtual machines from a failed node to an operating node instantly and moves data stores from a failed drive to operational drives instantly. All nodes have cross-channel interconnects so that redundant Ethernet switches always have separate communications paths to access in the event that a network interface card or switch port fails.
Complementing the compute nodes is an external storage unit with dual-headed redundant motherboards and controllers that supports 16 SAS or SATA drives in a RAID-Z2 configuration that allows fully redundant drive pools. Single points of failure have been eliminated, allowing continuous operation in the event of failures, and reducing the panic of having to dispatch a technician immediately on-site to replace a failed PC running a critical SCADA application that could adversely affect plant operation.
For more information, please contact: Clearcube Technology at www.clearcube.com
