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Petro Data will provide
state-of-the-art Central Station Monitoring for fuel retailers, jobbers, and
distributors. Older
'Polling' Technology falls short... Current
polling technologies allow for stations to be polled from a central location,
but only one site at a time. Information included in these polling intervals include
inventory, alarm and compliance data. Adding
phone lines and computers help, but the data cannot be retrieved fast enough to
see a true snap-shot at multiple points in time with resolutions that are less
than 4 – 8 hours when polling a
large number of sites. The time it
takes to set up a call, tear down the connection, and retrieve the data is just
too time consuming. At best, each call would take at least 60-180 seconds.
Even at the best case, 200 sites would take nearly 10 hours to retrieve
the needed data. To time deliveries and minimize the amount of fuel that is
stored in the tank, you need much more data than is possible to retrieve through
the current methodology of central polling.
To retrieve inventory, alarm and compliance data we must take advantage
of the distributed processing technologies available through the internet.
By allowing PetroTrak at the site to “push” data to a central
location, a polling cycle of several hundred stations can occur in just a few
minutes. By utilizing the standard
protocols of the Internet, we can keep all stations time synchronized. 
PetroTrak
is right on the money...
The
hardware 'heart' of PetroTrak is an internet-enabled appliance that polls your
tank gauges and pumps this data through a dial-up connection or WAN/LAN down to
a central location with near real-time accuracy.
The PetroTrak unit keeps itself in time with the rest of the world by
retrieving time from time servers on the internet and using it’s own
battery-backed real-time clock. Petro Trak
uses email
to ensure reliable delivery of the data to a central location for processing.
It can retrieve level information, compliance information, and alarm
information from any Automatic Tank Gauge that supports the Petroleum Industry
standard protocols. (Veeder-Root, Incon, Red Jacket, Emco Wheaton, EBW, etc.)
Petro Trak's software runs from a schedule configuration that can be managed from the
central data collection point. Every
time PetroTrak dials into the internet to send it’s data, it checks for new
email containing a new information from the central server, and if needed it retrieves
a new configuration and begins running a new
schedule.
PetroTrak
is always on time...
By
retrieving time from a central server, it ensures that the snapshot of the tanks
will be accurate to within a few seconds at all times.
It is set up to poll the Automatic Tank Gauge at programmable intervals.
Depending on your data monitoring/trending needs, it can send data as
often as every 5 minutes. Data
resolutions down to this point allow for excellent trend analysis. This
significantly increases the accuracy of fuel drops for scheduling and delivery
purposes. Furthermore, compliance data, including tank and line testing
information, can be sent to a central location for analysis.
Petro Data is
excited to introduce PetroTrak™, a
web or server based solution which allows site operators to track their fuel sales, tank
levels, site alarms, compliance data, time to refill based on sales,
cooler/reefer temperature, open/closed doors, and much more!
The technical gurus at Petro Data continue to evaluate this group of products. You will be hearing more about this line of products and
services in the next couple of months, so stay tuned!
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