Analysing and exploiting technology driven cost factors in long term IT operations in complex, mission critical operations centres

Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Florian Gotter

Doctoral thesis

Abstract:

In complex, mission critical long term IT operations with spans of 10+ years, there is a clear disproportion between actual operations and typical industry standard IT system lifecycles. Typical examples of such undertakings can be power grid operations, nuclear power stations control, railway control or spacecraft control, this dissertation is focusing on the latter. In spacecraft control, mission performance and platform requirements are more or less fixed ahead of a mission, while IT computing performance advances exponentially during mission lifetime. This advancement causes an exponential drop in price per computation. Unfortunately, almost no missions make use of the advancement of IT technology during their lifetime but operate spacecraft via a frozen IT systems scenario. If spacecraft missions were able to follow these improvements of IT, significant savings with regards to power consumption and data center space would be possible. This is in particular applicable to shared spacecraft control centers. In such a scenario, it might even be possible to avoid the construction of entire facilities. Based on an initial analysis of the factors involved, an approach is proposed making use of advancements in IT technology during mission lifetime. As changes to existing systems are coming at certain risks, an analysis on the impact on the systems failure rate as well as measurements on real world IT power consumption are performed in a laboratory environment. In order to further apply the authors research to a real world configuration, research on three larger programme size sample missions / groups of satellites with an operational duration of 15 / 20 years was undertaken. By making use the outlined approach together with initial research on IT performance development and applying it to a typical mission operations scenario, potential cost savings in a real world configuration are shown. Based on a further quantification of cost savings conclusions are drawn as well as recommendations are elaborated.

Abstract:

In complex, mission critical long term IT operations with spans of 10+ years, there is a clear disproportion between actual operations and typical industry standard IT system lifecycles. Typical examples of such undertakings can be power grid operations, nuclear power stations control, railway control or spacecraft control, this dissertation is focusing on the latter. In spacecraft control, mission performance and platform requirements are more or less fixed ahead of a mission, while IT computing performance advances exponentially during mission lifetime. This advancement causes an exponential drop in price per computation. Unfortunately, almost no missions make use of the advancement of IT technology during their lifetime but operate spacecraft via a frozen IT systems scenario. If spacecraft missions were able to follow these improvements of IT, significant savings with regards to power consumption and data center space would be possible. This is in particular applicable to shared spacecraft control centers. In such a scenario, it might even be possible to avoid the construction of entire facilities. Based on an initial analysis of the factors involved, an approach is proposed making use of advancements in IT technology during mission lifetime. As changes to existing systems are coming at certain risks, an analysis on the impact on the systems failure rate as well as measurements on real world IT power consumption are performed in a laboratory environment. In order to further apply the authors research to a real world configuration, research on three larger programme size sample missions / groups of satellites with an operational duration of 15 / 20 years was undertaken. By making use the outlined approach together with initial research on IT performance development and applying it to a typical mission operations scenario, potential cost savings in a real world configuration are shown. Based on a further quantification of cost savings conclusions are drawn as well as recommendations are elaborated.

Keywords

Cost Savings, Complex IT Operations, Technological Development

Keywords

Complex IT Operations, Cost Savings, Technological Development

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 30. 5. 2017

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Ing. František Dařena, Ph.D.
• Reader: Jiří Hřebíček, prof. RNDr., CSc., Peter Mikulecký, prof. RNDr., Andreas Gräßer, externi

Mendel University in Brno

Faculty of Business and Economics

Doctoral programme / field:
Economics and Management / Business Management and Economics