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Module 6: ICT & infrastructures

Module 6: ICT & infrastructures

“ICT and infrastructures: performance and architecture … Smart grids explained … Smart Grid Reference Architecture … Challenging: Assignment – Architecting an ICT-infrastructure … ICT and risks”
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Summaries

  • Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.1. ICT and infrastructures: performance and architecture > Web lecture: ICT and challenges for managing infrastuctures
  • Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.1. ICT and infrastructures: performance and architecture > Web lecture: Improving IT infrastructures
  • Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.2 Smart grids explained > Web lecture: Characteristics of smart grids
  • Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.3 Smart Grid Reference Architecture > Smart Grid Reference Architecture

Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.1. ICT and infrastructures: performance and architecture > Web lecture: ICT and challenges for managing infrastuctures

  • In this talk you will learn the prominence of ICT for the performance of infrastructures, the typical challenges faced when designing ICT for information exchange, and the need for guidance of ICT developments by information architectures.
  • Also the need of information sharing and using information plays a huge role.
  • An example is your address information having a certain format.
  • Sensors like videos, traffic movement, temperature, telescopes, and so on collect a big amount of data that can potentially be used.
  • The main challenge is that the need for information is often difficult to elicit in advance and over time the need for information can change.
  • Combining information is not easy, because information is often provided by different systems using different types of protocols that are unable to communicate with each other etc.
  • A smart grid combines various means for generating energy and in a smart grid a variety of energy users come together.
  • Smart grids need the integration of high-speed, reliable and secured data communication networks to manage the complex power systems effectively.
  • A smart grid and the interaction between the remote electric devices in real time have to be controlled.
  • The smart transmission infrastructures are expected to employ new technologies and to enhance smart grid, which complicates the design.
  • At last, the smart substations are expected to coordinate their local devices, based on the information available.
  • Plant operators collect and share information about their electricity production, maintenance window, maximum capacity and so on.
  • On the other hand, customers collect information about their own use and about their own devices.
  • Information is everywhere, which makes it difficult to find and to share.
  • Most value is created when information sources are combined.
  • For this purpose various organizations need to cooperate and exchange information with each other.
  • Only by having the right information, this can be accomplished.
  • The information you need could be the price of electricity to ensure that your washing machine might only start when the price is below a certain threshold.
  • This means that information should be shared and be interpreted.
  • There are many challenges for exchanging information.
  • The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers defines interoperability as “the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged”.
  • A common distinction in interoperability is between technical and syntactic, semantic level.
  • Syntactic interoperability refers to the structure and adherence to standards.
  • The level of semantic interoperability takes care that information is interpreted in the same way.
  • A fast, reliable and secure communication network plays a vital role in the management of a smart grid.
  • The technological layer refers to the transportation network, which includes elements like security, reliability, domain names and authentication.
  • This layer contains the Internet , mobile cellular networks, satellite networks, community networks, wired and wireless local area and personal networks.
  • Our network infrastructure should be able to meet the real-time, reliable and secure communications.
  • The syntactic layer should ensure that the data, that is being exchanged, has the same structure and adheres to the same standards.
  • The third layer is the semantic layer, which is meant to ensure that the communicating systems interpret the information in the same way.
  • Semantics provide meaning and is necessary to refer to what data denotes.
  • Pragmatic interoperability refers to all organizational and collaborative aspects related to the quality, trust, service agreements and context-sensitive aspects of meaning.
  • Service levels agreements contain information that is expected from other organizations.
  • These expectations are often related to the functioning of the systems, like the availability of the systems, response time, dealing with changes and so on.
  • How do you know if the information is correct? What will happen if there are conflicting information – how do you know which information is the correct information? Furthermore governance is necessary.
  • Information architecture aims at directing the design and development of ICT.
  • Information architecture contains decisions made at each of the levels to ensure interoperability.
  • In the next lecture we will focus on principles for creating flexible information architectures to meet the challenges of the future.

Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.1. ICT and infrastructures: performance and architecture > Web lecture: Improving IT infrastructures

  • In the previous lecture I discussed the prominence of ICT, interoperability challenges and the need for information architectures for guiding IT-infrastructure developments.
  • Individual departments and organizations continue to make local design decisions influencing the whole system.
  • In this way more and more systems become part of the IT-landscape.
  • Over time more and more systems are connected to each other resulting in a spaghetti of systems.
  • Simple questions like which information is correct? Which systems are connected to each other? Can we add new functionality without affecting other systems cannot be answered anymore.
  • IT-architecture is the art and science of structuring and organizing information and systems.
  • Traditional project planning and control tools are generally unsuitable for dealing with the complexity in open systems.
  • There are many players having limited authority, different requirements, a variety of systems and so on.
  • In our view, IT-architecture is an abstract description of the reality and can be used as frame of reference to guide design and development efforts.
  • A prescriptive architecture outlines the desired situation and is the results of design efforts.
  • Short term views are more concrete and the long term view is more like a vision.
  • Implementing efforts are aimed at improving parts of the IT-infrastructure and take into account the descriptive and prescriptive architectures.
  • In turn, implementation projects change the infrastructure and therefore the descriptive architecture needs to be updated.
  • The experiences and results of the design projects and resulting infrastructure influence the prescriptive architecture.
  • Architecture is an abstraction of the existing IT-infrastructure and the Next Generation of IT-Infrastructure.
  • A good architecture contains both descriptive and prescriptive elements.
  • I want to discuss layered architectures, views and principles.
  • Layers are a way to deal with complexity, views should ensure that important concerns like flexibility and security are addressed, and principles provide direction.
  • How are we going to deal with complexity? We have software applications, modules, databases, operation systems, communication protocols, pieces of hardware and so on.
  • One way of dealing with this vast complexity is by introducing layers and then organizing the elements using those layers.
  • Layers can be used to deal with complexity by organizing similar entities in one layer.
  • Each layer can be analyzed and designed independently of the other layers.
  • There is a risk that you don’t see the dependencies between layers.
  • Two databases do not seem to be connected when looking at one layer, but a dependency exists in the business process layer.
  • As such always ensure that you consider the dependencies among layers.
  • Do you need to use five layers as in our example? No, you can customize the layers for the problem at hand.
  • Within a layer, one can start at a high level of abstraction and then zoom in to a more detailed level.
  • Often the focus of IT-architecting is on a limited number of layers.
  • These views typically go beyond a single layer and can be added as a vertical column.
  • A view is what you see, looking from the perspective of the stakeholder and his/her concerns.
  • You can use a view within a layer, but often a view is used across all layers.
  • When we look at this example you still see that the lower layer contains the physical energy infrastructure and the layers on top the elements of the IT-infrastructure.
  • This looks already pretty structured and systematic and can also help you to describe the existing and the desired situation.
  • We can use principles to give direction to the architecture developments.
  • The Open Group have defined design principles as general rules and guidelines, that are intended to be enduring and seldom amended, that inform and support the way in which an organization sets about fulfilling its mission.
  • Principles emphasize doing the right things The Open Group Architecture Forum provide templates for describing principles.
  • In these templates principles are described by a name, a statement, a brief explanation of its rationale and implications of following the principle.
  • A principle will be easier accepted and remembered if you explain why a principle is relevant and what benefits it might bring.
  • In summary IT-architecting is the art and science of structuring and organizing information and systems.
  • In this lecture some instruments were provided to disentangle IT-infrastructures using layered-architectures, views and principles.

Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.2 Smart grids explained > Web lecture: Characteristics of smart grids

  • Many government institutions around the world have been encouraging the use of smart grids for their potential to control and deal with global warming and energy independence scenarios.
  • Renewables, requiring smart grids, are envisaged to become the prevailing energy source to contribute achieving energy policy goals as: Sustainable Development including decarbonization, Security of Supply including Import independency and fuel diversity, and of course Affordability.
  • The questions remains: How to design, manage and operate qualitatively new complex socio-technical system of smart grids? In a majority of countries demonstration pilot smart grids projects are being deployed to formulate lessons learnt and to perform cost-benefit analysis.
  • ” EC defined a smart grid as an electricity network that can cost efficiently integrate the behavior and actions of all users connected to it – generators, consumers and those that do both – in order to ensure economically efficient, sustainable power system with low losses and high levels of quality and security of supply and safety.
  • Again, you can see that a power sector, including smart grids, is not only represented by technical components including production, transport, distribution and consumption, but also the market level and different actors owning and using technology as well as defining regulatory context.
  • It will have a Significant penetration of IT. The use of ICT hardware/software and communication-infrastructure will allow for real-time monitoring and steering opportunities of network components such that the transportation and distribution capacity of the grid can be increased in a more flexible manner and against lower costs, compared to investments in more distribution and transmission capacity only.
  • The key challenges for smart grids are: Integration of intermittent generation, Decentralized architecture to enable small-scale distributed power generation, Enhanced intelligence of supply, demand, storage and the transmission and distribution networks, Information and Communication infrastructure for many new parties to operate and trade on the market, Implementation of Smart Metering Systems, Active demand side, Preparing for electric mobility.

Module 6: ICT & infrastructures, > 6.3 Smart Grid Reference Architecture > Smart Grid Reference Architecture

  • Smart Grids, electric power systems, they exist for more than a 100 years already.
  • Components of different generations fit together and have to inter-operate, have to work together, into one smooth smart grid.
  • I will introduce to you the smart grid reference architecture model as a conceptual framework that allows you to design a better smart grid, working smoothly together for the future.
  • I am going to present to you the smart grid reference architecture model as a conceptual framework that allows different actors in the smart grid to discuss about smart grid applications.
  • You have learned about smart grids in other sessions.
  • Smart grid applications exist in many different flavors and tastes.
  • You have a number of monitoring applications, metering data from the smart grid to the grid actor actors, aggregating information about profiles, profiling particular customers, analyzing the power quality, etc.
  • Control applications can have to do with controlling the grid – secondary, tertiary control about the voltage settings, about the most economic power plants that are running.
  • It can be about reconfiguring the topology of the grid.
  • Besides grid control applications, we also have the control of the generation of electricity.
  • Besides generation and grid control, there could also be storage control.
  • For instance if you have batteries in the grid when there is surplus of electricity produced you can store it locally and then use it later when there is a shortage.
  • A lot of smart grid applications have to deal with demand control, load control.
  • You can shift loads overtime, over seasons, and you could use it to flatten the load. These are all types of applications in the smart grid.
  • How do we discuss and design such a smart grid application in a way that the different actors -from the business level to the implementation level can jointly understand what is the smart grid application to be deployed.
  • Well for this context the CEN, CENELEC and ETSI Standardization units have identified the smart grid reference architecture.
  • This reference architecture is a kind of conceptual framework for discussing the applications in the smart grid with as major goal to allow interoperability.
  • In the smart grids reference architecture model, this general IEC based center for interoperability which consisted of 8 different layers, has been simplified to 5 layers.
  • The smart grid reference architectural model is a 3D-model and one of the dimensions will be these different layers.
  • At the business layer, we have a representation of the smart grid applications from a business perspective.
  • If you look at the smart grid application from the business layer perspective, then it allows the business executives that have to do some decision making to talk about the business models without having to care about the practical implementations and the ‘ nitty -griddy ‘details at the lowest levels.
  • If you go one level below that, the function layer, we are talking about the functionality that is supported by the different smart grid applications.
  • Which type of functions and services need to be implemented for a smart grid application to be operational? For instance, if you would like to deal with voltage problems, over-voltages under -voltages you need to provide a service that is able to react at the voltage level.
  • So independent of actors and physical implementations, the function layer allows to mention these functions and to deploy these services somewhere in the smart grid.
  • So at that level of the function layer, you are able to draw the use cases that are needed for the smart grid algorithms.
  • Finally, at the component layer, we have the emphasis on the physical distribution of the components necessary for those algorithms in a grid context.
  • So there we identify which type of the application, which part of the application, will be running on a sensor, or an actuator, in the substation, at the home appliance and the like.
  • It identifies the system actors from the power system, from the applications, and how they are interacting at the level of components, at the level of the communication, at the level of computing and processing power.
  • So if we have these dimensions summed up as different layers, we are able to talk about the smart grid applications.
  • How are we going to deploy them? That is represented by the other two dimensions of the smart grid reference architectural model.
  • Together we have the three dimensions the zones, the domains and the layers, that allow to represents the different smart grid applications visually so that the designers and the ones that have to deploy the system have a joint framework to discuss how to implement a particular smart grid application.
  • So this concludes our lecture on the smart grid reference architecture model.
  • We have introduced to you the 3D-model as a conceptual framework to describe a lot of smart grid applications.

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