ERCOT IT Update

ERCOT IT Update

Ken ShoquistVP, CIO Information Technology

Board Meeting

November 2003

AgendaAgenda

Metrics and Projects Commercial Systems Review Project

Jim Galvin, Kevin Judice, Rich Gruber

727 Project Summary

MetricsMetrics

EMMSVendor management progressSuccessful failover without incident

Transaction ProductionRetail processing steadySettlement volume continues to be high

EMMS 6 intervals missed

Transaction Processing Seasonal decrease in total txns Processing times steady

Settlements 7093 in October 24x7 monitoring of settlement

runs

Project Management 4 projects deployed in October 25 in process 22 in planning

Project DeploymentsProject Deployments

The BUL/LAAR Project was delayed to verify the Market User Interface (MUI) Deployed on November 11

Hardware and code failure for the retail API required an emergency rewrite of the functionality Redeployed to market on November 11

New Portal Deployment; now scheduled for December 3 Updated migration process has been verified Hardware has been added to improve reliability Texas Market Link (TML) being tested with market this week

Vendor management impacting EMMS and PUCTVendor/ERCOT management review held October 29

with next meeting scheduled December 10, 2003Vendor meetings resulted in two-week recovery of

PUCT MMS implementationNew vendor program manager focused on ERCOT

projects. Vendor to increase on-site presence going forward

Current schedule is to implement Market Needs Release 3 projects by end of May 2004

EMMS Project EMMS Project

AgendaAgenda



727 Project Summary

Commercial Application Systems ReviewCommercial Application Systems ReviewPR-30082PR-30082

Project Update

Project SponsorsJim GalvinKevin JudiceRich Gruber

Project HistoryProject History

At the end of 2002, approval was received on four projectsPR-30058 Siebel 7.0 Upgrade/ReplacementPR-30082 Commercial Application Systems Upgrade

• Upgrades began on PaperFree and all SeeBeyond components as a result of their clear upgrade paths (PR-30082)

PR-30083 LODESTAR Upgrade/Replacement• Conducted a functional review between LODESTAR

version 2.25 and 3.5PR-30110 Replace TCH

These same projects were approved for carry-over to 2004

CASR Update

Project DriversProject Drivers

Our recent history indicates our commercial systems: Met current business needs but not as efficiently as possible Able to meet market-design changes but are expensive to implement Require significant IT support to consistently meet market needs in the area

of processing times Most upgrade options are ‘re-implementation’ with new versions and

upgrade path may not be straight forward and will carry risk that needs careful management

Significant data manipulation and calculation functionality written outside of major systems

Without action, our outlook for our existing applications: May continue to incur a high total cost of ownership and risk of failure Continued challenges to accommodate market-driven changes Lifecycle of these systems is coming to an end. With a resolution coming in

a year+, we will be in a position with:• SeeBeyond, Seibel, Paper Free, LODESTAR– Multiple releases behind vendor• Tech support for old products is expensive and high risk

CASR Update

ApproachApproach

The core systems that comprise and integrate commercial applications are all under evaluation

ERCOT is developing a holistic set of functional and technical requirements The requirement process includes representatives from both business

and IT to promote the discovery of similar cross functionalities and dependencies

During this process, ERCOT will be evaluating any existing applications that better meet ERCOT’s functional and cost-of- ownership requirements. The possible outcome might be:

Modify existing Replace Upgrade Build

Most likely a combination of these

CASR Update

Project TimelineProject Timeline

A vital element of this project is determining other options available and the cost of those options Current focus is on requirements By year-end, ERCOT will send a request for

information to software vendors Organize database of potential vendors and service

providers ERCOT expects to have a course of action defined

early to mid-2004 Determine when and how to integrate TNT

requirements

CASR Update

Summary of Project VisionSummary of Project Vision

Remain obligated to support the ERCOT market with the right solution and best cost option to meet near-term needs and long-term considerations

CASR Update

AgendaAgenda



727 Project Summary

SCR 727 Extract StatusSCR 727 Extract Status

SCR 727 extracts provide market participants (MP) with the ESIID-level data ERCOT used for settlements Discrepancies can occur in the exchange of transactions between MPs and ERCOT

• These discrepancies cannot be mitigated within the extract or data archive

Summary of Events: In July 2003, MPs identified extract issues and ERCOT determined the cause was

data discrepancies with 1 to 3% of the records in the data archive• Certification of data archive tables was successfully completed by October 2003• Historical extracts for over two years of data were completed from LODESTAR

production MPs identified issues with less than .01% of the records in the historical

extracts• In October 2003, ERCOT conducted a code review and commenced extract re-

design• New application code should produce extracts against the data archive with an

error rate approaching 0%

ERCOT fully understands that even an error rate of less than .01% could have significant impact for an individual MP

SCR 727 Extract Status SCR 727 Extract Status (cont.)(cont.)

What went wrong? At start of project in January 2003, feasibility study to determine potential

architectural limitations was not performed Due to perceived simplicity and MP urgency, ERCOT developed the extracts

outside the standard development methodology• Limited requirements• No detailed system design documentation• No formalized test plan

What we learned? The data-archive snapshot architecture caused issues with extract record quality. The SCR-727 logic is highly complex and demands extensive code review and

testing. Defensive code adds to support complexity. There is no substitute for strong software development methodology for business

and IT.

If the complexity and architectural limitations had not existed, then the hard work of the cross-functional team would have been uneventful.

SCR 727 Extract Status SCR 727 Extract Status (cont.)(cont.)

December 19, 2003 Release: Extract re-design combined with auditing procedures will allow

us to move forward with an error rate approaching 0% Collaborative design and testing by the business and IT teams

is making this level of accuracy possible Defensive code developed to reconcile source systems and

archive navigates around an architectural short coming but adds a layer of cost and complexity to business and IT

Phase II:

Development of the EDW RSS and ODS scheduled in the first half of 2004 will eliminate the snapshot-related issues

Ongoing MP involvement with business and IT teaming will enable ERCOT to provide MPs with 100% of the data used for settlements

SummarySummary

Good progress in EMMS vendor scheduling and delivery New staffing measures taken by vendor are positive

Metrics and monitoring continue to increase efficiencies Reached maximum capacity for settlements products without

major investment

ERCOT, as a company, is maturing in production and project processes and responsibilities.

Commercial Systems Architecture Project is an opportunity for ERCOT to resolve:

Key commercial systems reliability issues Inefficiencies in operations and support processes Data integrity issues relieving need for defensive code Accommodate early requirements from TNT where appropriate

ERCOT IT Update

Documents

Transcript of ERCOT IT Update