Chinese Hydropower Company Partners with Avocent to Build Centralized Control Center for National Dam

As the operator of the largest dam in China, the Dadu River Hydropower Development Company is charged with a number of crucial responsibilities, including constructing and maintaining several hydropower stations that provide electricity to areas throughout the nation.

With this in mind, the company recently made the decision to construct a centralized control center to integrate communications and operations for the cascade hydropower stations that characterize the Dadu River. Dadu was looking for a solution that provides both centralized and remote real-time monitoring and remote computer operations support.

The deployment of such a solution came with several challenges, the most obvious of which is the sheer complexity of the job. With a supervisory computer controlled system, an industry television system, a large screen display and several other complex technologies, Dadu needed a computer system capable of ensuring consistent, integrated operations.

Considering the dam's critical nature, the platform also needed to comply with strict security standards that required safe isolation of the production system and the management system partition.

In addition, the system needed to be able to ensure secure and quality connections between dispatching stations and work stations, which requires a man-computer separated construction program.

After looking at a number of vendors on the market, Dadu chose to partner with Avocent, a company that designed a solution that enables highly integrated IT infrastructure management and remote computer operations.

The solution will consist of two IT infrastructure management platforms centering on DS View3, a software platform capable of managing, operating and maintaining all IT assets of the otherwise disparate computer systems.

"With the assistance of KVM over IP and Serial over IP, the DS View3 platform will centralize access to the management console ports of various servers and network devices," Dadu engineers noted in a recent case study. "This will overcome any technological isolation of computer systems and device types and will also enable the management of IT infrastructures in the Dadu River Centralized Control Center to become an organic whole."

Dadu believes that the unified management over the IT infrastructures of both the production system and management system partitions in the control room will significantly enhance the efficiency of IT personnel and the reliability and efficiency of the IT infrastructures.

The second aspect of the solution involves Avocent's HMX solution, an IP-based remote computer operation platform that will be used to extend the man-computer interfaces of the electronic dispatching stations from the computer room to the dispatching stations. Leveraging the system, Dadu will be able to transmit images, audio, USB data, microphone voice input, keyboard and mouse operation signals between the control center and the dispatching stations – all without any time delay or damage. This will help ensure the quality of the dispatchers' work.

The HMX solution is powered by the HMX2050 device, which provides a two-way video signal transmission that enables the remote operation of dual-display card workstations.

Dadu expects the HMX solution to break the shackles of the traditional analog KVM switch matrix by enabling the electronic dispatching of images and other data without delay. With the HMX solution, Dadu will be able to eliminate limitations stemming from transmission distance, prompt failure of high-resolution images in transmission, complex installation and deployment, and inextensibility of the system.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin