Case Study: Rowan Companies achieves near-real-time offshore IoT monitoring and BSEE compliance with Cloudera

Rowan Companies: increasing efficiencies through IoT connects sea to shore

Rowan Companies is a global offshore contract drilling provider with a fleet operating in the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, the Middle East and Trinidad. Remote locations, intermittent satellite connectivity, and limited real-time onshore visibility created operational and regulatory challenges—especially with upcoming BSEE rules requiring real-time monitoring and onshore data archiving—prompting Rowan to seek a scalable IoT data solution.

Rowan deployed Hortonworks Data Platform and DataFlow with Kepware’s KEPServerEX IoT Gateway to connect industrial control systems (BOP, drilling and power systems), prioritize/compress/encrypt data locally, and stream near real-time telemetry to shore. The first drillship went live in under 90 days (3,200 tags using 50 KB bandwidth), with plans to scale to 25 rigs (up to 10,000 tags/150 KB); the solution enables remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, reduced downtime and compliance with BSEE requirements.

Rowan Companies