IEC 61968-1:2012

IEC 61968-1


®


Edition 2.0 2012-10



INTERNATIONAL



STANDARD



NORME
INTERNATIONALE
colour
inside


Application integration at electric utilities – System interfaces for distribution
management –
Part 1: Interface architecture and general recommendations

Intégration d'applications pour les services électriques – Interfaces système
pour la gestion de distribution –
Partie 1: Architecture des interfaces et recommandations générales


IEC 61968-1:2012

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IEC 61968-1



®



Edition 2.0 2012-10







INTERNATIONAL





STANDARD







NORME



INTERNATIONALE
colour

inside










Application integration at electric utilities – System interfaces for distribution

management –

Part 1: Interface architecture and general recommendations




Intégration d'applications pour les services électriques – Interfaces système

pour la gestion de distribution –


Partie 1: Architecture des interfaces et recommandations générales














INTERNATIONAL

ELECTROTECHNICAL

COMMISSION


COMMISSION

ELECTROTECHNIQUE

PRICE CODE
INTERNATIONALE

CODE PRIX XB


ICS 33.200 ISBN 978-2-83220-425-2



Warning! Make sure that you obtained this publication from an authorized distributor.

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® Registered trademark of the International Electrotechnical Commission
Marque déposée de la Commission Electrotechnique Internationale

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CONTENTS


FOREWORD . 4

INTRODUCTION . 6

1 Scope . 11

2 Normative references . 11

3 Interface reference model . 11


3.1 Domain . 11

3.2 Business functions . 12
3.3 Interface reference model . 13
4 Integration infrastructure recommendations . 39
4.1 General . 39
4.2 Requirements analysis methodology . 39
5 Interface profile . 39
5.1 General . 39
5.2 Abstract components . 40
5.3 Component adapters . 41
5.4 Interface specification . 41
5.5 Middleware adapter . 41
5.6 Middleware services . 42
5.7 Communication services . 42
5.8 Platform environment . 42
6 Information exchange model . 42
6.1 General requirements . 42
6.2 Message structures . 43
6.2.1 General recommendation . 43
6.2.2 Message header . 44
6.2.3 Message type payload . 44
6.2.4 Explanation of associations . 46
6.2.5 Compliance philosophy . 47
6.2.6 Extension . 47
6.2.7 Request message . 47
6.2.8 Response message . 48

6.2.9 Event message . 48
6.2.10 Fault message . 48
6.2.11 Signature element . 49
7 Component reporting and error handling (informative) . 49
7.1 Component reporting . 49
7.2 Error message handling. 49
8 Security and authentication (informative) . 50
9 Maintenance aspects (informative) . 50
Annex A (informative) Use of IEC 61968 series of standards . 51
Annex B (informative) Inter-application integration performance considerations . 61
Annex C (informative) Views of data in a conventional electric utility . 62
Bibliography . 65

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61968-1 © IEC:2012 – 3 –


Figure 1 – Distribution management with IEC 61968 compliant interface architecture . 7

Figure 2 – Example utility implementation of IEC 61968 . 9


Figure 3 – Typical functions mapped to interface reference model . 13

Figure 4 – Overview of the interface profile and corresponding subclause numbers . 40

Figure 5 – Logical view of an IEC 61968 message . 44


Figure 6 – Example of a message type payload . 45

Figure 7 – Example of how message elements are derived from the CIM . 46

Figure 8 – Navigating associations in CIM (UML notation) . 46


Figure 9 – Navigating associations in message type schemas . 47
Figure 10 – Logical view of a request message . 47
Figure 11 – Logical view of a response message . 48
Figure 12 – Logical view of an event message . 48
Figure 13 – Logical view of a fault message . 49
Figure A.1 – Process A: Application of IEC 61968 series by a utility. 52
Figure A.2 – Process B: application of IEC 61968 series by a utility . 53
Figure C.1 – Database views depend on the time and user . 63

Table 1 – Document overview for IEC 61968-1 . 10
Table 2 – The Interface Reference Model (IRM) . 15
Table A.1 – Use case template . 55
Table A.2 – Commonly used verbs . 58
Table B.1 – Typical load scenario . 61

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INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION

____________



APPLICATION INTEGRATION AT ELECTRIC UTILITIES –

SYSTEM INTERFACES FOR DISTRIBUTION MANAGEMENT –



Part 1: Interface architecture and general recommendations





FOREWORD

1) The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising
all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote
international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To
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3) IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National
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8) Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is
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9) Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this IEC Publication may be the subject of
patent rights. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

International Standard IEC 61968-1 has been prepared by IEC technical committee 57: Power
systems management and associated information exchange.
This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition published in 2003. This edition
constitutes a technical revision.
This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous
edition:
a) update of IRM table which has been out of date since the 1st edition;
b) addition of missing Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) related functions;
c) alignment with newly released documents from the technical committee;
d) alignment with IEC 61968-100;
e) update of annexes.

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61968-1 © IEC:2012 – 5 –


The text of this standard is based on the following documents:


FDIS Report on voting

57/1272/FDIS 57/1288/RVD




Full information on the voting for the approval of this standard can be found in the report on

voting indicated in the above table.


This publication has been drafted in accordance with the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.


A list of all parts in the IEC 61968 series, published under the general title Application
integration at electric utilities – System interfaces for distribution management, can be found
on the IEC website.
The committee has decided that the contents of this publication will remain unchanged until
the stability date indicated on the IEC web site under "http://webstore.iec.ch" in the data
related to the specific publication. At this date, the publication will be
• reconfirmed,
• withdrawn,
• replaced by a revised edition, or
• amended.

IMPORTANT – The 'colour inside' logo on the cover page of this publication indicates
that it contains colours which are considered to be useful for the correct
understanding of its contents. Users should therefore print this document using a
colour printer.

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INTRODUCTION


IEC 61968 is a series of standards:


IEC 61968 part Title


1 Interface architecture and general recommendations

2 Glossary

3 Interface for network operation

4 Interface for records and asset management

1
5 Interface standard for operational planning and optimisation
2
6 Interface for maintenance and construction
3
7 Interface standard for network extension planning
4
8 Interface standard for customer support
9 Interface for meter reading and control
11 Common information model (CIM) extensions for distribution
13 CIM RDF model exchange format for distribution
5
100 Implementation profiles

The IEC 61968 series is intended to facilitate inter-application integration, as opposed to
intra-application integration of the various distributed software application systems supporting
the management of utility electrical distribution networks. Intra-application integration is aimed
at programs in the same application system, usually communicating with each other using
middleware that is embedded in their underlying runtime environment. Additionally the intra-
application integration tends to be optimized for close, real-time, synchronous connections
and interactive request/reply or conversation communication models. IEC 61968 series by
contrast, is intended to support the inter-application integration of a utility enterprise that
needs to connect disparate applications that are already built or new (legacy or purchased
applications) each supported by dissimilar runtime environments. Therefore, IEC 61968 series
is relevant to loosely coupled applications with more heterogeneity in languages, operating
systems, protocols, and management tools. IEC 61968 series is intended to support
applications that need to exchange data on an event driven basis. IEC 61968 series is also
intended to be implemented with middleware services that broker messages among
applications and complementing, but not replacing, utility data warehouses, database
gateways, and operational stores.

———————
1
 Under consideration.
2
 Under consideration.
3
 Under consideration.
4
 Under consideration.
5
 Under consideration.

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61968-1 © IEC:2012 – 7 –













IEC  1963/12

Figure 1 – Distribution management with IEC 61968 compliant interface architecture
Figure 1 clarifies the scope of IEC 61968-1 graphically in terms of business functions and
shows distribution management with IEC 61968 compliant interface architecture.
As used in IEC 61968 series, distribution management consists of various distributed
application components for the utility to manage electrical distribution networks. These
capabilities include monitoring and control of equipment for power delivery, management
processes to ensure system reliability, voltage management, demand-side management,
outage management, work management, automated mapping and facilities management. The
distribution management system could also be integrated with premise area networks (PAN)
through an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) network. Standard interfaces are to be
defined for each class of applications identified in Clause 3, Interface Reference Model (IRM),
except for those in the group EXT (External to DMS – distribution management system).
In the distribution management domain it is important to keep in mind the basic meaning of
the following terms:

• management: effective regulation and direction;
• automation: working without human participation in accordance with pre-defined rule sets;
• system: a set of organized operations working to support a particular activity (set of
applications). Generally, a system in the context of this work is a computer based
technology.
In the world of integrated systems, systems can also be a subset of a larger system, a system
of systems or a set of federated systems. A system composed of coordinating subsystems
may support activities more efficiently than the subsystems operating independently.
As the size of an organisation increases so does the complexity of the tasks and information
exchange associated with the tasks. Furthermore, the deeper the data structure is within a
system the less transparent it is to the end user. This suggests the need for data stewardship
to avoid:
• errors arising from multiple points of data entry;

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• lack of consistency with software interfaces;


• expensive changes with new or upgraded software;

• loss of governance of authorised data.


The standardisation of data facilitates the reduction of errors, reduced time for data entry, and
improved process control.


IEC 61968 series recommends that the semantics (domain model) of system interfaces of a
compliant utility inter-application infrastructure be defined using Unified Modelling Language
(UML).


The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a data format for structured document interchange
particularly on the Internet. One of its primary uses is information exchange between different
and potentially incompatible computer systems. XML is thus recommended to define
grammar/syntax (profiles) of a compliant utility inter-application infrastructure.
Where applicable, IEC 61968-3 to -9 and -13 of this standard will define the information
recommended for ‘message payloads’. Message Payloads will be formatted using XML, with
structures defined using XML Schema (IEC 61968-3 to -9) or RDF Schema (IEC 61968-13)
with the intent that these payloads can be loaded on to messages of various messaging
transports, such as SOAP, JMS, RESTful HTTP, or Web Services (WS). It is the intent of
IEC 61968 series to be leveraged by Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and to encourage
the usage of Enterprise Service Buses (ESB). In the future, it is possible that payload formats
other than XML could be officially adopted by IEC 61968 series for specific parts or
information exchanges.
Communication between application components of the IRM requires compatibility on two
levels:
• message formats and protocols;
• message contents are mutually understood, including application-level issues of message
layout and semantics.
Clause 5 defines abstract middleware services recommended to support communication
between the applications defined in the IRM. These services are intended to be deployed,
with little additional software required, by mapping them to commonly available services from
various messaging technologies including Web services (WS-*) and middleware such as
Message Brokers, Message Oriented Middleware (MOM), Message-Queuing Middleware
(MQM), and Enterprise Service Buses (ESB). Clause 5 is organized as follows:
• Subclause 5.1 provides overview of interface profile.

• Subclause 5.2 identifies general recommendations of the applications identified in the IRM.
• Sub-clause 5.3 describes component adapters.
• Subclause 5.4 describes interface specification recommendations.
• Subclause 5.5 describes how information exchange services may either be supported
directly by middleware or that software may be required to map (adapt) the utility’s
middleware services to the standard information exchange services.
• Subclauses 5.6 to 5.8 describe environmental recommendations for information exchange.
An example of a typical utility’s implementation of IEC 61968 series is provided in Figure 2. In
this example, the utility has used interface adapters as a means to integrate many of its
legacy systems with other application systems that are IEC 61968 compliant. Note those
legacy systems and IEC 61968 compliant systems both continue to use proprietary integration
techniques among their internal applications; only information that needs to be exchanged
among applications at the utility enterprise level is expected to use IEC 61968 interface
services.

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61968-1 © IEC:2012 – 9 –


For purposes of this example, it is assumed that the utility’s Outage Management System

(OMS) already has the capability to issue controls to and gather device states from the

Distribution Automation system. As it is working acceptably for the utility, this interface does

not need to be changed. However, because other applications need to be notified when

distribution devices change state, the Distribution Automation system publishes state changes

through middleware services. Another benefit of publishing events is that they can be

recorded by an event history application in a data store; this data can then be used in the
generation of various types of reports. As much of the information exchanged among these

systems is useful for management decision support, a data warehouse application has also

been connected to the IEC 61968 middleware services so that it may receive published

information.



IEC  1964/12

Figure 2 – Example utility implementation of IEC 61968
The organization of IEC 61968-1 is described in Table 1.

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Table 1 – Document overview for IEC 61968-1

Clause Title Purpose


1. Scope Scope of IEC 61968-1.

2. Normative references Documents that contain provisions which, through reference in this text,

constitute provisions of this International Standard.

3. Interface reference The domain relevant to IEC 61968 series is described. For each relevant
model business function, a list of abstract components is provided, which is
described by the functions performed by the component. Parts IEC 61968-

3 to -9 define interfaces for these abstract components.

4. Integration infrastructure Utility inter-application infrastructure recommendations to integrate

recommendations components distributed throughout the enterprise.
5. Interface profile Utility inter-application integration environmental requirements are
described. Abstract message passing services are defined and are
available for applications to communicate information to other applications,
including publish and subscribe services.
6. Information exchange Requirements and recommendations are provided for information
model exchange between applications/functions listed in the IRM.

7. Component reporting Recommendations for audit trails and error message handling
and error handling authenti
...