How utility companies Aysa and UTE take advantage of automation

Argentine water company Aysa and Uruguayan power utility UTE are using Red Hat automation solutions to improve IT processes, make operations more efficient and offer better data to their business departments.

“The electric power sector has undergone important changes and we've had a large computer network because even in residential homes there is equipment interconnected with servers; we also have self-service totems – so there is no option but to automate," Julio Marote, IT manager at UTE, told BNamericas on the sidelines of a Red Hat event in Buenos Aires.

UTE has about 80% of homes with a smart meter connected to the internet.

Aysa, for its part, needed a tool to self-manage its digital transformation process and went with Red Hat's Ansible tool to automate its IT operations, said Aysa solutions architect Alejandro M. Bernardi, who adds that the utility also uses the RHEL operating system and Red Hat's Openshift orchestration platform.

“We're integrating a lot of things, not only with Red Hat technology but also other third-party technologies,” Bernardi told BNamericas.

The Ansible implementation project is halfway through. “We have the cluster set up and are closing the second stage, which is to expand the cluster to high availability. We're also carrying out a process of cultural change with the staff."

UTE – which, like Aysa, has around 8,000 employees – is also focusing on training and changing its workers' mindsets. “We've been carrying out a cultural change project at UTE for the last seven to eight years with individual and leadership workshops," said Marote.

With automation, "you can do things you didn't do before, have better quality control of the product, save time," he adds.