CASE STUDY: Facilitating Situational Awareness Using AVEVA™ PI System™ Software

The Client: DT Midstream

DT Midstream (DTM) is a company that provides natural gas transportation service to producers and large industrial customers while maintaining an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework. They became an independent company in 2021 after splitting from DTE Energy (DTE). Today, DTM is a midstream gas company with over 1,000 miles of gathering pipelines.

DTM’s assets include miles of interstate and intrastate pipelines, so they need reliable data. This reliable data allows their transportation and storage systems to meet customer expectations.

Learn how CSE ICON helped DTM migrate their data to a new system and expand it to increase their situational awareness.

Challenge: Migration of Data and Design of New PI System on a Tight Deadline

As a newly separated company from DTE, DTM started with more than 20 years of experience in the energy industry. This helped the company provide reliable pipeline services to more clients while maintaining its promise of world-class service at a competitive cost. However, their PI System needed to catch up. DTM’s old PI System was limiting their capabilities as they needed to include data from additional assets and increase the situational awareness of their operations team. But it was essential to migrate data (like reports and displays) from the old PI System to a new customized system that could grow along with the company’s asset base. That’s when DTM came to CSE ICON looking for a solution to: Migrate data to a new PI System keeping in mind the multiple sources from where DTM should pull the data to avoid any data gaps. Design a new PI System that met the requirements of an expanded database and included proper documentation. This project also required vigilant planning as DTM needed to put in place its customized PI System before its separation from DTE.

Solution: Backup of Former PI System, Design of a New PI System with 13 Servers, and Health Monitoring

CSE ICON worked on planning and implementing the new PI System for DTM while providing ongoing support. As this was a data migration project and the design of a new PI System, this is the process CSE ICON took to approach the challenge and implement a solution:

1. Backup of the Former PI System

As a first step, CSE ICON retrieved a copy of the data in the existing PI System. Retrieving this copy was a standard procedure to ensure that, if there were any complications with the data migration, DTM wouldn’t lose any information.

To get the data needed by reports and displays, CSE ICON gathered information around all of DTM’s data sources which included the following:

• Eagle Research Talon SCADA system flat files

• RSLinx OPC DA server
• AUTOSOL OPC DA server
• Kepware OPC UA server
• Ignition SCADA System OPC UA Server
• Eagle Research Talon SCADA system flat files

2. Design of the New Expanded PI System

The new PI System was designed with 13 servers running the following software components:

• PI OPC DA Interface
• PI UFL Interface

• PI Data Archive
• AF, Asset Analytics, and Notifications
• SQL Server
• PI Vision
• PI Connector for OPC UA (Gen 2)
• PI OPC DA Interface
• PI UFL Interface

Figure 1 – Architecture of DTM’s PI System

3. Data Migration

The existing PI Vision displays and PI DataLink reports from the old PI System were repointed to the new PI System. Then, CSE ICON created tags to collect data from new data sources from which DTM wasn’t capturing data into their former PI System.

4. Health Monitoring

Finally, CSE ICON configured a health monitoring system for PI making use of: Asset Analytics: To provide early warnings of system downtime, maintenance, or failure. Notifications: To notify the appropriate personnel of any issues. PI Vision displays: To check indicators of system health.

Result: Optimization of DTM’s Processes and New Cybersecurity Best Practices

CSE ICON implemented the new PI System ahead of DTM’s deadline and under budget. Thanks to this, DTM was able to include data from additional assets which provided insights into operational aspects that DTM previously didn’t have. The access to information like system downtime and failure made it possible for DTM to better their maintenance strategy and reduce costs.

In designing DTM’s new PI System, CSE ICON applied best practices and the latest technologies like:

• Network segmentation/isolation to ensure easy access to the PI System for corporate users, helping to protect the process control network by limiting user access
• Deployment of data collection software as close to the data sources as possible
• Second-generation PI Connectors (along with the associated Connector Relay and Data Collection Manager)
• PI API 2018 to enable the use of Windows Integrated Security (WIS) for authentication purposes
• High availability (UniInt Failover) for PI interfaces

Migrate Your Data without Risk and Better Your Operational Strategy

Migrating your data can be a daunting task. Many things can go wrong, from incompatibility of the systems, lack of documentation and the need to know where you should pull your data. However, migrating your data is an essential factor every business must do at some point.

Nowadays, data allows businesses to make informed business decisions, and not using data you already have on your old systems is a wasted opportunity. If you’re ready to mitigate risk when migrating your data and get a complete design of a compatible system, contact CSE ICON.