Real-Time Operating Centers (ROCs) are industry-changing facilities that bring together cutting-edge technology to integrate and analyze data from multiple sources—service companies, equipment, and more. This gives completions teams a real-time, unified view of all active fleets, helping them make smarter decisions, faster.

However, an ROC is only as effective as the data it can access. To truly deliver value, it needs live, high-quality, and highly available data. That means sub-second latency, 99.99% uptime, and the ability to consistently call a frac from an off-site location. Additionally, ROCs require data caching onsite before transmission and long-term, reliable off-site storage (a persistent data set).

In this article, we’ll break down what makes an effective Completions ROC and how SmartPAD simplifies the process—ensuring seamless data aggregation, persistence, and network fault tolerance at every step.

What Does a Completions ROC Really Need?

It’s not just about calling frac remotely—ROCs also require a clean, aggregated data set that includes time-series sensor data and stage reporting. Beyond that, a well-integrated data system enables other key business efficiencies, such as:

• Integrating all onsite and off-site data.
• Performing live Quality Control (QC) to ensure decisions are based on reliable data.
• Automating reporting from curated, high-quality datasets.

Let’s break it down further.

#1. Data Ingestion: Gathering ALL the Right Information

A great ROC doesn’t just pull data from a couple of sources—it gathers information from every relevant service and piece of equipment on a frac site. At a minimum, that includes Frac and Wireline data. But to be a true centralized decision-making hub, an ROC must also integrate:

• Valve and pressure sensors from the Frac Tree
• Rates and volumes from Pumpdown
• Totals, volumes and rates from Water Transfer/Storage Services
• Pressure data from nearby Offset Wells

The challenge? No two data sets are the same. Different equipment, systems, and service companies use different formats, timestamps (or none at all), and communication protocols (Serial, TCP, APIs, MQTT, SCADA, etc.). An ROC must synchronize everything against a system-wide time reference to create a single, credible source of truth.

Another consideration: Equipment and sensors break. ROCs need the flexibility to swap out faulty sensors, pumps, or even entire service companies without disrupting operations. That means standardizing data before it ever reaches the ROC.

#2. Real-Time Data: Speed, Reliability, and Uptime

Speed matters. In completions, subsurface conditions change fast—sometimes within seconds. That means an ROC needs real-time data delivery in under two seconds to stay ahead.

However, raw data often needs cleansing, remapping, and backfilling before it’s useful. To handle this, a high-quality ROC requires:

• Scalable ingestion software that processes high-volume, high-velocity data.
• 24/7 robust access to real-time data, even if there’s an infrastructure failure.

Everything breaks eventually including internet connections, cloud servers, databases, and edge devices. The key is to eliminate single points of failure by implementing:

• Redundant internet services with automatic switching.
• Direct edge-to-cloud streaming (no extra servers or database nodes in the way).
• Backup access to on-site edge networks in case of web server issues.

Maintaining 99.99% uptime and sub-2-second latency in remote locations is no small feat—but it’s essential for ROCS to function effectively.

#3. High-Quality Data: The Foundation of a Reliable ROC

Even the best data pipeline is useless if the data itself is flawed. Sensors can break, get miscalibrated, or drop off the stream entirely causing inaccurate readings and bad decisions.

To ensure data quality, an ROC must:

• Monitor and track data quality metrics in real-time.
• Detect and alert teams to anomalies (like missing or incorrect data).
• Ensure consistent, standardized data formats across all sources.

Without these safeguards, even the most advanced ROC can make bad decisions based on bad data.

How SmartPAD Powers a Next-Gen ROC

SmartPAD has designed and patented a fully automated reporting system for Plug-and-Perf operations. Its advanced features enable seamless automation of pad state, timeline, and stage reporting, ensuring efficiency and accuracy.

Key SmartPAD Capabilities:

• Central Integration – The ROC system connects and integrates data from all services and equipment onsite.
• Timestamp syncing – All sensor data is synced to the SmartPAD timestamp ensuring an aligned timeline of the sensor data.
• Smart Internet switching – CBT uses low-orbit satellites for internet access, as it provides the highest uptime and bandwidth. Should there be an outage, like the one that occurred in July of 2024 at Starlink, the CBT smart switch automatically switches over to cellular data uplinks. Cold Bore users experienced no downtime during the StarLink global outage.
• VPN tunneling – Direct VPN tunneling to the CBT Edge server means even if the cloud hosted SmartPAD server were to go down, remote users still have access to their pad and data.
• Edge-to-cloud Streaming – Data from the Edge is streamed directly to users’ SmartPAD clients. This means no reliance on cloud storage or other 3rd party services and minimal latency between sensors and remote users.
• Well Management System Integration – Leverage all the data quality and automated reporting within SmartPAD to eliminate nearly all manual data entry required today.
• DataOps Management – All channel data, real-time data values, time logging and stage report data go through the DataOps Quality Control system. Managed 24/7 by CBT’s own ROC team.

Final Thoughts

SmartPAD streamlines the aggregation and persistence of time series data, ensuring fault tolerance at every step. As demonstrated in the use case, SmartPAD is a powerful cloud and edge service platform that enables a Completions ROC group to maintain a high availability of pad data while seamlessly integrating onsite data sources.

Ready to experience the Cold Bore difference? Contact us today!