A reference software architecture for the development of industrial automation high-level applications in the petroleum industry

This paper presents a reference software architecture for the development of enterprise industrial automation applications for the oil industry. Its design accounts for criteria such as interoperability, portability, scalability, availability, security, use of legacy systems and maintainability. The architecture includes a technological platform that consists of a J2EE application server, a failover management system and, optionally, a server farm with an IP redirection-based load balancer. Also part of the architecture are infrastructure elements such as: (i) process data sources (PDSs) that offer an uniform interface for the synchronous and asynchronous access to SCADA or similar systems, (ii) field event generators (FEGs) that produce asynchronous notifications corresponding to the occurrence of pre-established conditions in the industrial processes, and (iii) business entities (BEs) that allow the handling of persistent information of real business entities, independently of the persistence mechanism used. Finally, its effectiveness is verified through the development of a prototype application for the optimization of the duration of well production tests.