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Case Study


ROVISYS


EDGE COMPUTING IN LIFE SCIENCES





HOW ROVISYS DEPLOYED STRATUS EDGE COMPUTING TO ELIMINATE DOWNTIME AND DATA LOSS,
CONVERGE OT/IT, AND REDUCE FAT/SAT FROM WEEKS TO DAYS FOR A LIFE SCIENCES
COMPANY


CHALLENGES

 * Eliminate downtime and data loss in batch manufacturing for a life sciences
   company
 * Ensure data reliability for FDA regulation, GMP, and VCAP
 * Standardize control architectures for three sites across a multi-site campus
 * Enable manufacturing operations team to maintain and support computing
   infrastructure without high-level IT support


SOLUTION

 * Stratus ftServer® and Stratus ztC Edge™ for fault tolerance and data
   collection
 * Rockwell Automation PlantPAx® software for campus-wide production control


BENEFITS

 * Eliminated downtime and consolidated software workloads by replacing six
   hyperconverged server clusters with Stratus Edge Computing
 * Standardized and scaled computing across different life sciences facilities
   and use cases
 * Reduced the FAT/SAT process from weeks to hours; completed full validation in
   one week
 * Cut total cost of ownership (TCO) by 15-20% and projected duty cycle of 15
   years for compute platforms


BRINGING RELIABILITY TO BATCH MANUFACTURING IN LIFE SCIENCES



A leading life sciences company with a portfolio spanning cell biology, DNA,
RNA, and protein analysis, drug development, human identification, and molecular
diagnostics needed to eliminate downtime and data loss in its manufacturing
operations by selecting a more reliable and easy-to-maintain compute
infrastructure for its batch manufacturing operations. The company had been
relying on hyperconverged server clusters and software-based fault tolerance to
manage process automation and data required for FDA regulation.

Consulting with RoviSys®, a global systems integrator specializing in
automation, the company standardized on Rockwell Automation PlantPAx® software
running on Stratus® Edge Computing for three manufacturing sites on the
company’s campus. RoviSys deployed fault-tolerant Edge Computing platforms for
process automation that dramatically simplified the life science company’s IT
infrastructure. Using Stratus platforms, RoviSys deployed the control
architecture in a week – from factory acceptance testing (FAT) to site
acceptance testing (SAT) and validation while reducing TCO by 15-20% as compared
to the prior cluster solution. Since the Stratus deployment, the life sciences
company has experienced no downtime, and is able to service the compute
platforms without dedicated IT support.


SERVER CLUSTERS INSUFFICIENT FOR LIFE SCIENCES MANUFACTURING

The company had been relying on server clusters to provide computing and data
collection for its critical manufacturing processes. The team faced a number of
costly challenges, from component failure to unplanned system outages, that
resulted in data loss or downtime. This impacted their ability to pass FDA
audits and GMP reporting and led to crippling manufacturing disruptions and
product waste. If a cluster server failed, the team often did not have immediate
support and knowledge to rebuild the node requiring additional recovery time.
Additionally, the team needed to be able to track their VCAP (version change,
audit control) process to map system changes to specific batches and vice versa.

Initially, RoviSys considered a hyperconverged cluster based on Cisco® HyperFlex
that would reside in a corporate data center and would be managed by the end
user’s team. However, that choice entailed several hurdles. The solution
required a virtual SAN with 10 gig networking across the customer’s campus which
required a lot of expertise and a lot of bandwidth. In addition, the highly
customized and complex nature of the solution not only needs extensive licensing
costs, but would also require a team of highly trained people. From a practical
standpoint, this allowed too much margin for error in the setup and management
of the cluster system.


SIMPLE, PROTECTED, AUTONOMOUS EDGE COMPUTING BUILT FOR OT



To provide a simpler and easily serviceable availability solution, RoviSys
recommended the Stratus ftServer and Stratus ztC Edge compute platforms. In
contrast to the more complex hyperconverged cluster that required significant
integration work, Stratus platforms are ready off-the-shelf to be installed
quickly. The operational simplicity was a key factor making the Stratus
platforms a solution that the OT team could use without needing specialized IT
skills. Installation and end user training took about two hours – instead of at
least two days for the HyperFlex solution. The team also calculated the
end-user’s total cost of ownership (TCO) to be 15-20% lower with Stratus.

The Stratus platforms provided an exceptional level of data protection with
99.999% availability and no risk of costly downtime while enabling stronger
cybersecurity. Due to the hardware-based fault tolerance, there was no failover
delay or data loss. In the event of component failure, the customer’s
operational team could easily swap out plug-and-play components with no impact
to the batch application, process disruption, or data loss. With the
uninterrupted operation of the applications and VMs running on the system,
validation testing can be completed quickly, saving significant time and
resources.

In comparison, with a cluster node failure, the team would have faced multiple
steps to replace and validate a new node, from physical replacement and physical
and logical validation to confirmation that all VMs across all nodes were
functioning. The entire process for a manufacturing site might require as many
as ten people on a customer’s validation team plus two or three consulting
resources to run the testing and occur over days or weeks.


PRODUCTION CONTROL ARCHITECTURE WITH ROCKWELL AUTOMATION AND STRATUS



For production control, RoviSys architected Rockwell Automation and Stratus
solutions for three facilities – a large-scale protein manufacturing site, a
site producing DNA and RNA reagents, and a small molecule site feeding other
manufacturing processes. For the two larger sites, the team matched Rockwell
Automation PlantPAx, including HMI, historian, batch, Asset Centre, Vantage
Point, Thin Manager, Engineering Workstation, and SQL, running on a Stratus
ftServer 6910 and 2900, respectively. The small molecule site did not require 5
nine plus reliability and ran the PlantPAx suite on a Stratus ztC Edge 110i
platform. For network security, the platforms were segmented based on Rockwell
Automation’s recommended cybersecurity practices.

The team set up seven VMs per production line to consolidate software workloads.
The efficiency also translated into significant savings on software licenses,
for example, costing only $600 for VMware for ftServer as compared to thousands
of dollars per node in a cluster solution. Similarly, the team was able to
realize cost savings with Microsoft data center licenses.


SHORTER FAT/SAT CYCLES AND QUICK VALIDATION

For deployment with the Stratus platforms, RoviSys accomplished the crucial
FAT/SAT testing and validation processes in hours versus weeks with a cluster
solution. The team was able to plug and unplug nodes and verify immediately
failover without disruption, including running a library of Linux routines to
test that various components and low-level software were up-to-date as part of
the FAT/SAT process.

The rack-mountable, fault tolerant, and self-healing design of the Stratus
platforms enable them to be deployed in production for a lengthy time. The team
forecast a 15-year duty cycle for the platforms and concluded that with Stratus’
longevity, durability, and streamlined FAT/SAT verification, the life sciences
company would have a top-performing, high-availability solution for the long
haul.


OT/IT CONVERGENCE, SHORTENED FAT/SAT CYCLES, AND FAULT TOLERANCE A WIN IN LIFE
SCIENCES

Working with their life sciences end user, RoviSys quickly deployed Stratus Edge
Computing and transformed the reliability of their customer’s manufacturing
operations, VCAP process, and GMP reporting. The solution dramatically
simplified IT infrastructure and enabled the OT team to deploy and maintain new
infrastructure without on-site IT support. Importantly, RoviSys’ key to success
was running a successful proof of concept (PoC) and using a solution that
reduced FAT/SAT and validation testing from weeks to days. With the trust built
from this success, RoviSys has expanded its end user engagement for additional
projects.


INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTION


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About Stratus Technologies
An Company

For more than 40 years, Stratus has provided high-availability, fault-tolerant
computing to Fortune 500 companies and small-to-medium sized businesses enabling
them to securely and remotely run mission-critical applications without downtime
at the data center and Edge to turn data into actionable intelligence.


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