ERCOT IT Update

1
ERCOT IT Update

• Ken Shoquist
• VP, CIO Information Technology
• Board Meeting
• September 2003

2
Agenda

• Metrics
• Project Updates
• ERCOT Participation with other ISOs
• Texas Electric Market (TEM) Forum Update

3
IT Highlights

• Production Good progress made in stabilizing
  EMMS production performance with NO intervals
  missed in month of August compared to 27 in July.
  
• Development 4 projects delivered in August.
  Continued development effort with ERCOT Business
  on Commercial Systems Architecture and product
  support issues. This will continue to put
  pressure on business staffing.
• Texas Electric Market IT Forum Over 200
  Participants attended from 45 companies. ERCOT
  will form 2 groups for common interest items in
  IT and Security.

4
System Reliability
Results
Initiatives

• Negotiate contract with vendors for fourth level
  response with vendor.
• New EMMS production support manager joining
  September 15.
• Continue to mature software management processes.

• Extended automated monitoring of EMMS servers
• Senior EMMS consultant added to support team for
  facilitation of cross training.

2003 Mission Critical Unplanned EMMS Outages
Outage Minutes
Intervals Missed
Ceiling Target EMS and MUI 45 minutes (99.9)
Ceiling Target 3 RTB Intervals
5
Transaction Processing

• Initiatives
• Capacity Planning for software/hardware footprint
  that supports target utilization and improves
  system availability and reliability.
• Extend application monitoring tools, 4Q, 2003.

• Results
• Recent moves of software components to alleviate
  resource contention have yielded productivity
  gains.
• Challenges
• Current server support from vendor being phased
  out in 3 years. Server performance will mandate
  a change next year.

Processing Time (hrs)
Transaction Volume (MM)
2003 Retail Transaction Processing
Average 814 transaction processing times exclude
maintenance (type 20).
6
Reporting Performance

• Results
• Application tuning during the first part of
  August resulted in processing improvements for an
  18 point gain over last month in the number of
  settlement statements posting within Protocol.
• Challenges
• Continued high level of settlement volume 

• Initiatives
• Reengineering of settlements transport tool to
  ensure posting of settlements at the Portal
  within Protocol.

2003 Report Posting Settlements
7
IT Project Performance
Projects Deployed in August 2003
Year-to-Date Priority Projects

• 36 complete,
• 21 in progress, and
• 18 in planning

• Move In Move Out Mid term enhancements
• QSE Mismatched Schedules
• Smoothing Algorithm PRR 350
• Outage Scheduler Phase II

IT Project Updates
Monthly Activity
Project Performance
8
Development Performance
Upcoming Deployments at ERCOT

• QSE Market Testing (Dec 2003)
• Increase availability
• Increase functionality

• BUL / LAAR (Moved to Oct from Sept)
• Load Research Sampling (TBD)

Energy Management Systems
Settlement Billing

• Portal Replacement (Oct 2003)
• Portfolio Mgmt Software (Nov 2003)
• Document Management (TBD)
• Lawson G/L Upgrade (Dec 2003)
• Enterprise Data Warehouse (Dec-PhaseI)

• Commercial Dev/Test Systems (Nov 2003)
• Texas Set 1.6 (Dec 2003)
• MIMO Long-term Market (Aug 2004)
• Market Coordination Team formed
• Requirements being finalized

Enterprise Operations
Transaction Processing
9
Commercial Applications Systems Upgrade

• Project encompasses the entire end-to-end
  functionality of commercial systems.

Technical Architecture
Operation Monitoring
Auditing
Customers, Communication, Disputes, and
Resolution
Settlements And Billing
Billing Determinants (Data Aggregation)
Transaction Services
Data Collection / Reporting
10
Why Now?

• Timing is never going to be perfect, but time is
  not likely to improve the condition
• Ongoing cost of support and maintenance is going
  up.
• Severity of issues will increase.
• Cost of reliability and performance will impact
  the ability to respond to business and market
  requests.
• Without an Agile platform we will not be in the
  position to take advantage of opportunities.
• Convergence of upgrade cycles.
• Need for documentation on as is systems and
  processes necessary for SAS70 Type II.
• High availability for commercial systems arena is
  becoming a need to control costs and provide a
  higher degree of performance.

11
Project Sponsors

• Executive Sponsors
• Ray Guliani
• Ken Shoquist
• Steve Wallace
• Management Team
• Betty Day
• James Cohea
• Ken Ragsdale
• Ted Hailu
• Karen Bergman
• Dale Goodman
• Calvin Opheim
• Scott Middleton
• Mohan Yeggoni
• Dave Johnson
• Chris Douglas
• David Farley

• Director Sponsors
• Jim Galvin
• Richard Gruber
• Kevin Judice
• Rob Connell
• Project Management
• David Troxtell
• Paul Hutchison
• Dave Odle
• Glen Wingerd

12
ISO/RTO Information Technology Committee
Purpose

• Promoting Communications
• Providing Mutual Assistance
• Technology Standardization
• Share Expertise and Advice

Current Activities

• Security Working Group
• Meta Data Working Group
• Peer Review (Base lining)
• ITC Participation in ERCOTs IT TEM Forum on
  September 15th

Opportunities

• Architecture Working Group
• Vendor Synergies

13
ISO/RTO Information Technology Committee (ITC)
Standardization Initiatives to Address seams
issues

• Data Initiative (CIM extensions)
• Data Transmission
• Market User Interface (API)

Upcoming Events

• ISO Architects Meeting on October 14, 2003
• Next Quarterly Meeting Scheduled for December

14
IT TEM Forum
First IT TEM Forum a SUCCESS!

• Over 200 Participants Attended
• 45 Unique Companies, 4 ISOs, PUC
• Homeland Security, FBI, and Secret Service
• On-line, IT survey conducted of IT market
  personnel
• Forum evaluations completed

Survey Says 7 Did NOT meet expectations 67
Did Meet Expectations 26 Exceeded Expectations
15
Two New Groups in Formation

• Excellent support at Conference for
• ERCOT Critical Infrastructure Protection Group
• Collaborative effort to bring together Market
  Participants to discuss solutions for CYBER and
  PHYSICAL Security.
• ERCOT IT Common Interest Group
• Collaborative effort on IT projects, direction,
  vendor synergies, and education on best
  practices.

16
Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
Purpose A collaborative effort to bring together
owners and operators of critical physical and
cyber assets for securing the Texas electric
sector.

• Channel security information from
• Local Authorities
• Regional Authorities
• Federal Authorities
• Discuss security solutions
• Share information
• Communicate and clarify NERC security standards
• Assist in security standards implementation

17
CIP Group Communication
Establishment of the group is vital in helping
ALL stakeholders in the electric power industry
respond to the threat of terrorist attacks and
facilitate major outage recovery.

• Action
• Send informative letter discussing group role on
  9/12/03
• Collect Texas participant contact information
• Initiate first group meeting in central location

• Distribution
• All QSEs (65)
• All Transmission Service Providers (17)
• PGCs with total generation over 800MW (30)
• Others can participate by subscribing at
  marketsecurity_at_ercot.com

18
Testing the Myths

• ERCOT must have EDI to function it is the most
  cost effective method for the operation of the
  market.
• If ERCOT is secure then the market is secure.
• All the back office systems of market
  participants are competitive differentiators and
  should never be centralized within ERCOT.

19
Summary

• Production Management
• Good progress in EMMS production much more
  progress necessary.
• Development
• BUL/LAAR project slips by one month to ensure
  adequate testing.
• Work continues with ERCOT Business on Commercial
  Systems Architecture/Product future
  supportability issues.
• TEM Forum
• Good Participation by Market.
• Two new groups will be formed Security and IT