Santos Brasil: ‘Digitization and automation are at the core of our infra project’

In full expansion and with fresh funds after French multinational CMA CGM acquired 48% of its capital, Brazilian infrastructure firm and port terminal operator Santos Brasil is looking to level up its digitization and automation to improve efficiency, increase work safety and reduce costs.

The group is migrating a large proportion of its data workloads to the cloud in a multi-cloud model with Oracle as its main partner and with data hosted in two Equinix datacenters. It's also planning new initiatives with AI and robotics to handle cargo processing.

Santos Brasil seeks to expand the capacity of its main terminal, Tecon Santos, to handle 3MTEUs per year by 2026, a target it had previously expected to achieve by 2031. It is expected to end the year with a capacity of 2.6MTEUs following 420mn reais (US$70mn) in investments.

BNamericas caught up with its CTO, Ricardo Miranda, to learn more.

BNamericas: The company has various projects underway in the area of digital services, automation and technology in general. What can we expect for 2025?

Miranda: We're working on different fronts. Digitization and automation are at the core of our infrastructure project as a whole.

We had some things that were still being built and have now materialized. When we spoke last time, we had the cloud project. That project has come to fruition. We moved to two Equinix datacenters in a colocation model, in São Paulo; one main site and the other for disaster recovery. We signed the deal at the end of 2023 and began the migration in January.

And from the sites, we established what we call Fast Connect, fast connections to public clouds. We set up a new architecture to support a hybrid environment. That's why we moved to a scale datacenter, so that we could have this connectivity with cloud services in a more direct way.

All connectivity is done through a ZTNA solution, Zero Trust Network Access, which replaces the VPN. And this allowed us to change all our links to the internet.

With this, we were able to guarantee high availability and with a mix of technologies. We have a wired network, a radio network and, finally, a satellite network.

BNamericas: Which is Starlink, right?

Miranda: That's right. At the beginning of this year, we found a partner in Brazil that sold Starlink and had good antenna availability. We obtained a Starlink kit for each of our operational units, assets. There are six units.

These different technologies guarantee high availability. Even more so in ports, which are more remote locations. We recently had a terminal that operated for more than three days with just Starlink.

BNamericas: Which terminal?

Miranda: The one in Itaqui. We had a problem with the local wired network and Starlink saved us. It worked really well.

BNamericas: Different companies in industrial sectors have been investing in satellite as redundancy, as a backup for connectivity.

Miranda: When you use this SDN concept, which is Software Defined Network, the platform itself checks the quality of the links and alternates them. 

In other words, if the wired link goes down, it goes to the radio. If the radio goes down, it goes to Starlink. If the cable comes back up, it goes back to the cable. If the cable goes out, it moves to the second link it has.

This is all part of our architecture to have a safe, scalable, permanently connected environment.

BNamericas: How is Santos Brasil's migration to the cloud going?

Miranda: Today, 40% of my processing data is running remotely, in the cloud or in a colocation datacenter, which is why I use the word remote.

Next year, we should be above 50%. Now, a 100% cloud vision is a much longer-term vision. Some solutions, such as TOS, which is the Terminal Operation System, the heart of the terminal, have to be running locally today.

Imbituba, which is a smaller terminal of ours, already runs 100% remotely. 

We don’t have a goal of 100% cloud. That’s why we set up an architecture to support the hybrid environment.

And as opportunities arise and the world evolves, you can make this change. Because you already have an installed and prepared base.

BNamericas: Who is the main public cloud provider?

BNamericas: We have an agreement with Oracle. But we’re multi-cloud. Most of our workload, when we talk about IaaS, PaaS, [infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service], ends up being on OCI [Oracle Cloud Infrastructure].

BNamericas: Why OCI?

Miranda: We work with all four: Azure, AWS, OCI, Google. But the choice of Oracle as the main provider for infrastructure was largely due to the characteristics of what we needed to host. Plus, we have a lot of Oracle databases here.

We also migrated in the middle of the year to Rise with SAP [an offering that helps companies modernize processes and migrate to the cloud], which runs on the AWS cloud. So our SAP application is on AWS, connected through Equinix via FastConnect. That’s the logic of our architecture.

We signed the contract with SAP at the beginning of this year. And then it was a process of about four, a little over five months to migrate everything. We’re on SAP's most modern platform.

BNamericas: What are the next steps? What projects do you have planned?

Miranda: We have a project with Google. We’re using Google's cloud to predict maintenance of our structures in the port yard.

This will start in January. We did a POC [proof-of-concept], which worked well, and we signed a contract to carry out the final process. Based on energy consumption, sensors, vibration, we can predict breakdowns to act before the machine has a problem.

This is hosted on Google through a solution that Google calls Manufacturing Data Engine. So we capture data from the machines' PLC, input it into it, and it creates productivity KPIs and also an artificial intelligence model based on symptoms.

BNamericas: Where are you using Microsoft? 

Miranda: At Azure, I use a cognitive service to identify the container OCR [optical character recognition], which is when I read the numbers and take a photo of the cargo. 

They have an OCR service that helps with this identification. Our DNS is also in Azure as a service. This architecture that we set up to be multi-cloud allows us to go to where it is most appropriate with reasonable ease. 

BNamericas: We’ve spoken a lot about connectivity and satellite. What about private 5G or 4G?

Miranda: Private 5G is mostly access to the yard, internal access. And we have traditional technology in the yard that currently meets our demands. That's why we're not in a hurry to move to 5G.

But the next step we have to take to improve performance in the yard must be 5G. We've already made the most of the technology we’re using. We'll certainly have more demands in the future.

And what is this future? The convergence between IT and OT, which is getting stronger and stronger. When you start to have a larger volume of data like this, 5G starts becoming more interesting.

I think that in a period of one or two years, we should get to 5G. We've already been buying all the yard equipment prepared for 5G connection. It's ready.

Today, I have 50 antennas in the yard. With 5G, I reduce that to just five and I can still cover it with higher speed and penetration than traditional technology.

BNamericas: You brought up an important point with the convergence of IT and OT, which is the opening up of interfaces and exposures to vulnerabilities and attacks, for example. The more equipment is connected, the more possible doors you have for such entry. How are you working on cybersecurity?

Miranda: Digitization is increasing the surfaces because there’s less and less paper, more data circulating, integrations are getting bigger and more actors are participating in digitization.

The cybersecurity aspect needs to keep up with this increase in surface and we’re doing that. We have several partners. 

Today, when it comes to security, you don't have one size fits all.

BNamericas: What are the next steps in digital twins?

Miranda: Digital twin has helped us simulate things. What will be my bottleneck with our expected growth in TEUs? Will my bottleneck be in the gate? What happens if I open two new gates and don't invest in the yard? 

Twin helps us a lot in telling us where to invest best to reach the target or moving 3MTEUs per year. Our main software for this is Simio. 

One interesting thing related to what we are doing involves the large gantries for moving loads in the yard. We’re replacing them all with electric ones. 

We bought eight, an investment of 130mn reais in equipment alone, plus 12mn reais in yard infrastructure – power plant, cabling. 

But they have an important feature; they’re operated remotely. They have 23 cameras on each piece of equipment. Of these 23, 18 are for visual inspection, that is, they’re available for other things, such as reading plates, etc. 

We’ve already bought eight more of these pieces of equipment, which will arrive next year. So by 2031, we expect to have fully replaced them with electric equipment. 

Today we have 47, eight of which are electric. This changes a lot, including the carbon footprint. Each piece of equipment prevents 20t per month of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the environment.

BNamericas: Last year, you said that the company invested 60mn reais per year in technology but you recently mentioned that 55mn reais per year was spent between 2023 and 2026. Can you explain the difference?

Miranda: When I refer to 60mn reais, that's the amount for the budget as a whole, including more ordinary expenses such as payments for internet links or SAP licenses.

The 55mn reais refers to digital technologies, to new projects. That's the reason for the difference.