Data center high availability for integrated machine control platforms

Abstract

National Oilwell Varco is a multinational company providing solutions to the oil industry. The main focus in Stavanger office is the Cyberbase chair and control system. This chair is a operators interface with machinery and software that controls the drilling process. The high operation costs of an oil exploration rig, downtime is expensive and should be avoided. The current computer system used in machine control is setup uses multiple paths, which are dependent on all components within a path to function. This thesis looks at the current setup and tries to eliminate downtime , by building multiple redundant paths. By using virtualization and high availability functionality, less downtime and higher reliability for the data center is achieved. Remote desktop protocols for connecting client machines to a virtual machine are tested against each other, and an industry latency requirement. Tests reveal a large difference between protocols, and find one more suited.