Architectural Principles and Requirements

If one were to envision a utility where an IntelliGrid Architecture based architecture had been completely adopted, one would see that it provides an ideal platform for higher-level analysis across the entire enterprise. A simple analogy might be that a utility executive ideally wants to drive a utility much like a pilot might fly an airplane during cloudy conditions. In this case, a pilot can use just instruments to get a complete picture. That is, all required aspects of fight operation are visible via a well laid out set of instruments. Similarly, since most utility operational information and risk is not visible unaided, a utility manager uses a set of software components as instruments to get a complete picture. The instruments condense and summarize all the required information. To actually direct the airplane, the pilot uses a mechanical interface consisting of a limited set of pedals, switches, levers, and “steering wheel”. How the instruments and mechanical interface connect to the airplane and outside world is in someway irrelevant to the pilot. One could say that pilots only care that a set of inputs lead to a set of desired results via comprehensive user interface. Similarly, a utility executive wants a simple set of applications to help direct the utility enterprise.

It is this unified comprehensible user interface that IntelliGrid Architecture ultimately seeks to enable. This interface may exist at many levels of the utility. For example, an executive may be primarily concerned with balancing profit and risk whereas an operational supervisor may be primarily concerned with balancing income and reliability. However, it is clear that the primary goals of IntelliGrid Architecture are to enable a comprehensive view of operations and analytics in a secure manner.

These end-to-end analysis applications largely don’t exist today because without a single unifying architecture they are too expensive to develop. There are a great variety of systems being used in a utility. In order to get a true picture of the entire utility, these systems and data need to be integrated. Consequently, development of the end to end analysis application can be hugely expensive. Therefore in the past, even though the integration was technologically feasible, it was not practical because the expense was prohibitive. It is IntelliGrid Architecture Team’s belief that only via the deployment of a unified architecture and standard solutions can the new analysis applications be economically deployed. The IntelliGrid Architecture provides a unified architecture to realize this vision.

This section starts with the requirements of utility industry applications that are captured in the form of Domain Use Case. However, focusing on the applications alone often bypasses the creation of common infrastructure capabilities that, while burdensome to create for a single application, make it possible to realize the myriad of functions that utility participants anticipate. In order to focus on the capabilities of the shared architecture upon which secure end-to-end looking applications can be built, we examine six essential “abstract use cases” that describe the requirements of the common architecture. This section shows the derivation of these Abstract Use Cases and then describes the analysis done by IntelliGrid Architecture team to develop the architecture.

As the analytical phases of IntelliGrid Architecture project progressed, the team iteratively analyzed use cases and derived solutions at subsequent levels of abstraction with increasing detail. A useful analogy is to say that the analysis began by starting from business needs, and gradually descending towards a more nearly realizable solution via design goals, abstract design and technology recommendations. We reprise this analogy from Volume I section 3 in Figure 1.

This figure shows the levels of abstraction used during IntelliGrid Architecture Enterprise Architectural Analysis.

At each level of abstraction, the team looked to discover commonality so that a unifying architecture could be discovered. The levels are described in Table 1.

Table 1 Principles Applied to Each Level of Abstraction
Level of Abstraction	Principles applied to each problem area at this level
Business Need	The Business Needs of the power industry were identified and their information requirements were assessed in the analysis of the utility operations functions and management.
Strategic Vision	The Strategic Vision for the IntelliGrid Architecture reflects the ultimate objectives for an information infrastructure that can meet all of the business needs, including network configuration requirements, quality of service requirements, security requirements, and data management and exchange requirements. This Strategic Vision is based on unifying: – Abstract Modeling – Security Management – Network and System Management – Data Management and Exchange – Integration and Interoperability
Tactical Approach	The Tactical Approach uses Information Models, Common Services and Generic Interfaces to provide a deployment environment and technology independent solution for implementing interoperable systems and for managing the migration from legacy systems toward fully integrated systems.
Technology and Best Practices	This section describes how the Tactical Approach may be realized using implementable technologies. It compares recommended technologies and discusses their merits in regard to how well they support the IntelliGrid Architecture.
Deployment Guidelines	Provides guidelines on how to apply the architecture in a layered manner. This is intended to help system designers create migration plans in which legacy applications can be adapted to conform to the architecture and new applications can be non-disruptively added.

The remainder of this section discusses the principles applied at each level of abstraction in more detail.