Smart Grid Communications: Why You Should “Layer” Yours

Trilliant's announcement today of its SecureMesh Bridge makes me realize I am overdue to alert you to an important new trend. It’s one that has implications about how utilities should build their Smart Grid communication systems. And one that makes it easy to guess where communications vendors will be taking their products.

Trilliant calls the concept "multi-tier networks." The WiMAX specialists at Alvarion call it "layered architecture." And SmartSynch’s GridRouter takes a hardware approach under the “open platform” moniker.

Regardless of the terminology, the idea is to build your Smart Grid communications systems in "layers" or "tiers" to create a seamless flow between the:

·         HAN (home area network)

·         NAN (neighborhood area network)

·         FAN (field area network, as in mobile workforce)

·         WAN (wide area network, as in backhaul)

This approach give you the option to choose best-of-breed technology for each layer, rather than ending up with a compromise. Trilliant claims to have taken things to the next step by letting you manage a WAN and a NAN with a single system, and host a variety of applications.

In essence, Trilliant is merely keeping that promise it made 10 months ago when it acquired SkyPilot. It has effectively merged its NAN-oriented RF mesh network with SkyPilot’s WAN-oriented WiMAX, and done so with multipurpose boxes that can handle both technologies. A single-vendor solution is certainly a convenience -- as long as it is done with open standards so you can swap in new technologies as they appear, whether or not they come from Trilliant.

At the time, I predicted that Trilliant's SkyPilot acquisition heralded a move towards "unified communications." I stand by that forecast -- watch for more vendors to make "unified" announcements within the next six months.

What I'm learning now is that the best way for utilities to navigate this transition is to use a "layered" approach when architecting their systems.

From the source …

Smart Grid Communications: Trilliant announcement

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Trilliant Acquisition Signals the Next Phase of Smart Grid

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