Now that we have seen the reasons for cloud adoption and its benefits, we will talk about the common concerns that many mining organizations have cited as reasons not to transform their business using Cloud.

Some of these concerns are indeed legitimate, given that many of our customers are located in remote sites, but inevitably, the acceleration of technology adoption will impact all industries. We’ve already seen in our personal lives how Netflix has disrupted television viewing and how Spotify has changed the way we listen to music. Mining, too, will not be immune to such disruptions.

So, why do we still run desktop applications?

1. The data isn’t secure

   Because data is stored with a cloud storage provider, many feel that the user no longer has any control over their information. Furthermore, there are also data hacking and other security concerns.

   However, in terms of physical security, most cloud service providers store their data in much more secure locations than most mining companies could ever hope to. In addition, they have the infrastructure to enable proper protection against natural disasters, heat waves, power outages and so on to cover a much wider range of risks than would ever be catered for in a local data center. They also have backup infrastructure and offsite data protection capabilities that make retrieving data much more likely in the event of a disaster.

   

   The risks inherent in keeping data locally at a mine site are much greater and vary by location, but the threat of weather, hardware failure and accident are invariably higher than in a cloud data center.

   Many mining companies are also concerned about IP loss as a result of loss of data from a security breach. Again, these risks are much higher in locations where a USB drive can be simply plugged into a laptop or a field machine can be dropped or lost. There is an additional security risk associated with having sensitive data scattered across many users’ laptops in addition to the risk of rarely having access to the most recent data or not being sure that the data on the laptop is the most recent version.

   In contrast, cloud computing providers rely on trust in their infrastructure and many provide military-grade cyber security measures to ensure that their systems are not vulnerable.

2. I have a poor internet connection

   Many of us have struggled with mobile phone connections or unreliable low bandwidth connections at mine sites, and the thought of storing all our data on a machine thousands of kilometers or miles away may seem laughable.

   But good business communications have become a necessity for many reasons, and the cost of providing good communications infrastructure is frequently outweighed by the business benefits of having it installed. Much like electricity and water, robust communication networks are becoming a prerequisite for doing business effectively whatever the location.

   In many parts of the world, alternatives to cabled internet connections such as high bandwidth satellite, 3G, 4G and LTE cellular connections and other forms of wireless communication can attain speeds which make use of cloud applications practicable. Alternatively, there can be scope for mining companies to partner with other local organizations or telecoms providers to make the service available. This can sometimes be viewed as a community asset, increasing the company’s social reputation.

   

   The amount of time taken to process data is also an important consideration. If multiple optimizations need to be carried out to determine the optimal pit shell for example, it may make sense to divest this operation to one or more servers with more processing power, memory and disk space, leaving the local PC free to do other tasks.

   As more data is moved to the cloud, many processes can be completed more quickly as a consequence of being on the cloud, despite the user being at a remote location with limited bandwidth.

3. Software availability

   As cloud computing is a relatively new technology, a lot of applications that we use for our everyday work are not available on the cloud. This is an important factor in considering which functions can be moved to cloud infrastructure.

   Currently, most mine planning solutions are desktop only. While software companies like us are working to move these functions to the cloud, a desktop or hybrid approach can be effective, whereby the user works with data locally but synchronizes them to the cloud to make them available for other users.

   Not only does this provide an effective backup for the data, but it can also allow for effective review and approval processes to ensure correct and timely decisions are made at all stages of the mining process. This also provides agility to address downstream processes in a timely manner and on-site bottlenecks can be reduced.

View Part 1, 2 and 4 of this series

• Bio
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Charles Elliott

Technical Architect, GEOVIA at Dassault Systèmes

Charles is a Geologist with 30 years’ software experience across a range of industries from telecommunications and finance to high tech and government. Over the past nine years at Dassault Systèmes, Charles has served in several positions across GEOVIA R&D and participated in project implementations from Mongolia to India and New Zealand to South Africa. In his current role, he provides technical support to sales channels. In his spare time, he enjoys trekking and playing the grand piano.

Latest posts by Charles Elliott (see all)

• Solutions to Blending Problems in Industrial Minerals - July 31, 2018
• Part 4: Cloud Solutions - July 3, 2017
• Part 3: Cloud Computing Issues & Benefits - June 21, 2017