Ian Grayson | April 29, 2008
case study | Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines
WITH Australia's resources boom showing no sign of slowing, running operations at peak efficiency is top priority for mining companies.
The massive Kalgoorlie pit can't afford disruptions to its communications network
Working in remote areas with harsh climatic conditions is a considerable challenge.
Add to this a shortage of qualified staff and things get even tougher.
At the massive Kalgoorlie open-cut gold mine in Western Australia, around-the-clock operations produce some 850,000 ounces of the precious metal every year.
Working in a pit that's more than 3km long and 450m deep, miners rely on a range of technology systems to get the job done.
As is the case with any large-scale operation, all mine systems are linked by a high-speed network that transmits, processes and stores information. Any disruption to this network can have serious implications for all activity in the mine.
According to Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines information services co-ordinator Shaun Fessey, some 12 months ago the mine realised its existing switched ethernet network would not be able to support a planned major server upgrade.
"We were undertaking a large project to put in virtualised servers," he said.
"We wanted to put in two separate server systems to give us redundancy for business continuity, but the network we had was not set up to achieve that redundancy."
After examining a range of options, KCGM selected equipment from Nortel, replacing the Cisco kit that had been in place for more than seven years. A combination of Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5530s for the network core and ERS 5520 switches at the network edge were used to build the new network.
Fessey says a key reason for the choice of Nortel kit was the company's Split Multi Link Trunking technology, which eliminates single points of failure on a network by ensuring each switch has multiple paths through which to route traffic.
So, if a fibre cable is severed or a switch brought down, data can instantly be directed through another switch. This ensures critical traffic is not disrupted and applications can continue to run without disruption.
"The network supports all operations, from mine management software to human resources, payroll and mission-critical ordering systems," Fessey says.
"We need to be sure it can continue to operate."
The network is currently supporting some 500 users comprising 450 static machines and 50 mobile workers.
Fessey says other vendors approached the redundancy challenge using architectures such as network spanning trees, but this brought with it a considerable amount of overhead in the form of extra network administration.
"The simplified operator interface is what won the deal for us," he says.
"One technician can administer the entire internet protocol network, monitoring the whole site from a web interface.
"Command line interfaces have been the backbone of the IT industry, but graphical user interfaces make it much easier for staff to monitor and administer the infrastructure."
The robustness of the network equipment was also an important criterion for its selection.
Because it takes time to get replacement parts to the site and the number of qualified network professionals is limited, having kit that can operate in harsh conditions is vital.
The new network was rolled out gradually over two months.
This staged approach was used to ensure it fitted in with the server replacement project undertaken at the same time.
Existing fibre cabling was retained around the mine site and augmented with an extra fibre link between two new storage area networks (SANs) built to provide disaster recovery facilities for the operation.
While the SANs are both located on site, they are actually about 3km apart, ensuring that data will remain safe even if something happens to one of the installations.
The network core is running at 1Gbps, with links to users operating at 100Mbps.
Fessey says these speeds provide considerable capacity above and beyond what's required, and future-proofs the network.
"I'm not yet convinced that the gigabit speeds will really be needed for mainstream use on-site during the next four or five years," he says.
"At this stage we are really using it primarily for SAN-to-SAN replication.
"Some of the mine mapping software benefits from the higher throughput, although most of this is contained on local machines, so the amount of data coming over the network tends to be minimal."
When selecting its network switches, KCGM also included power over ethernet (PoE) capabilities to provide alternatives for future expansion.
PoE allows connected devices to receive their electric current via the ethernet cable, rather than being plugged into a separate powerpoint. It's particularly useful for devices such as VoIP phone handsets.
Fessey says VoIP services are being trialled in one location in the mine and there are plans to extend it to other locations.
The tests have been positive, but there are no immediate plans to extend VoIP usage across the entire mine.
"I'm not one for putting all my eggs in one basket," Fessey says.
"However, the copper phone lines have been in place for a number of years and are deteriorating in some parts, so VoIP does give us an alternative to pulling more copper.
"We have plenty of fibre and bandwidth, but I'm not advocating a site-wide move to VoIP until I know exactly what the impact on our voice communications would be."
There are also plans to make use of videoconferencing over the internet protocol network, but there is no time frame for this.
The fibre switched network has also been connected to an existing wireless mesh network that covers the entire mine pit.
Telemetry data is collected from trucks and shovels working in the pit via the wireless network and then transferred over the ethernet network to mine control applications.
Looking ahead, Fessey says, the company is considering rolling out thin-client terminals around the mine.
Their appeal is lower maintenance costs and their ability to work reliably in harsh conditions.