Communication system for Smart Grids EE-576

M.ENGG. ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PROGRAMME, FALL SEMESTER 2022

INSTRUCTOR: DR. SUNDUS ALI, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING, NED UET

Week 5 TOPIC:
Networking Fundamentals for Smart Grid Communication-
Layers 3 and 4

Email: sundus@neduet.edu.pk, sundus@cloud.neduet.edu.pk

Office Location: Telecommunication Engineering Building Faculty Offices
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Virtual LAN

 A Virtual LAN (VLAN) helps limit the broadcast domains to a subset of endpoints
connected to an Ethernet network. The Ethernet frame header is extended by 4 additional
bytes, of which a 12-bit VLAN ID is used to identify this subset of endpoints.
 There may be more than one VLAN defined in an Ethernet network with different subsets of
the endpoints in the individual VLAN. The subsets of endpoints in different VLANs may
overlap.
 A switch receiving a frame with a VLAN ID broadcasts it to only the ports that connect to
the endpoints belonging to the VLAN with that VLAN ID.
 All other features such as MAC address learning and spanning trees are now defined on a
per VLAN basis.
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Wireless Broadband Services

 Many standards developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and 3rd
Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) have been widely adopted by NSPs throughout
the world for support of wide area commercial wireless service.
 These standards include General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), High-Speed Packet Access
service (HSPA), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) from 3GPP, and CDMA
2000 Evolved Data Optimized (EvDO) from 3GPP2. They are variously called 3G and 3.5G
standards providing peak data rates ranging from hundreds of kbps to 10 Mbps or higher.
 New wireless broadband services based on 3GPP’s 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard
can provide peak data rates ranging from 3 Mbps to more than 100 Mbps, depending on
the spectrum and technologies used for LTE deployment.
 LTE is suitable for Smart Grid applications, particularly those for which it is not economical to
provide wireline connections to application endpoints.
 Another wireless broadband technology is Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave
Access (WiMAX) specified by the IEEE 802.16 standards. WiMAX supports peak data rates of
up to 40 Mbps.
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Wireless Broadband Services

 All these broadband standards provide specifications for PHY+MAC.

 In all these technologies, the wireless endpoints transmit (or receive) data to (or from) a
base station over the Radio Access Network (RAN).
 The base station is connected to (IP) network over a backhaul connection generally
using T1/E1, T3/E3, and Ethernet (including over microwave networks). In LTE networks,
the base station (called evolved Node B – eNB) is itself an IP node.
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Logic Link Control

 The L2 standards and network technologies may not include all the necessary functions
specified in the formal definition of the (data) link layer in the OSI RM specification.
 In most cases, the additional functions required for compliance with OSI RM L2 specifications
are not necessary or not used by the common L3 standards, particularly by IP.
 If necessary, the Logical Link Control (LLC) standard IEEE 802.2 may be used for L2 layer
functions that may be lacking in PHY+MAC standards, particularly with Ethernet. The LLC
layer lies between the MAC and the IP layer.
 LLC is not very widely implemented in networks.
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MPLS

 We introduce MPLS here, as the MPLS layer is often considered “layer 2.5,” which includes the
functions of layers 1 and 2 as well as many other features that are typical of layer 3.
 MPLS-based services are used to emulate many L1 and L2 protocols including T1, PPP, Frame
Relay, and Ethernet.
 Some of the traditional L2 technologies like Frame Relay are being phased out and replaced with
MPLS (where necessary, emulating these protocols with the corresponding MPLS services). Note
that the MPLS protocol itself does not have any sublayers of its own (such as layer 1 or 2).
 MPLS services defined over the MPLS network provide the required L1, L2, or L3 connections
between the end systems that are completely independent of the networking technologies used
to implement MPLS.
 MPLS supports the configuration of predetermined paths between pairs of nodes, also called
MPLS switches or routers. Using this feature, all packets entering the network at one end of the
path follow the same path (the same sequence of routers in the path) to the end of the path.
 Thus, the router forwards the incoming packet from the previous router of the path (or from the
source endpoint in case of the first router of the path) to the next router on the path (or the
destination endpoint, in case of the last router on the path).
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MPLS

 The forwarding decision is made based on the label in the MPLS header of the incoming packet
and the mapping of that label to the next router in the path. A path thus defined is called a label-
switched path (LSP).
 In MPLS terminology, the endpoint system is called a Customer Edge (CE) or a Customer Edge
Router (CER).
 CEs connect to the network router called the Provider Edge (PE) or Provider Edge Router (PER).
Routers in the network that are not PEs (i.e., not connected to any CE) are called Provider (P)
routers.
 MPLS was intended to be used by NSPs to offer MPLS-based services to their customers, hence the
terminology of CE, PE, and P routers.
 MPLS, however, is used in private networks to offer MPLS services to their respective internal
customers with the corresponding meanings attached to the CEs, PEs, and the P routers.
 Strictly speaking, P routers are called Label-Switching Routers (LSRs). The PE routers are called Label
Edge Routers (LERs). The LSPs are defined between the LERs and pass through zero or more LSRs.
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Internet Protocol (IP)

 Most widely implemented networking technology. IP was developed for connecting any two endpoints as
long as there are one or more networks whose interconnection provides a data path between the two
endpoints.
 The Internet is based on IP. Internet has helped spur the development of a large number of standards in
support of the operation and use of IP networks, as well as the development of interoperable IP networking
products and technologies.
 These widespread advancements have contributed to increased network efficiencies, lower network costs,
and the development of new end user–oriented services. Most enterprise networks are based on IP as they
derive benefits from its evolution.
 In the utility industry, there is reluctance to support the utility mission-critical applications over IP networks.
 While some of these concerns may be valid, most stem from the occasional reliability and security breaches
in the Internet.
 There are standards, products, and tools that enable an IP network developed by utilities for Smart Grid to be
much more reliable and secure than the open Internet.
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IP Addressing

 Every system (node or endpoint) with L3 layer support is identified by its unique network layer
address.
 The IP address (as the network address is called in an IP network) is a 32-bit number often
written as four 8-bit numbers separated by a period or full stop (.).
 An IP address is thus written as a combination of four numbers a.b.c.d (0<=a, b, c, d <=255).
This IP address space of 232 address is globally regulated and managed by the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
 Every IP-addressable system (node or endpoint) must have a unique address within the IP
network.
 In fact, in addition to addressing a node or an endpoint system with its own IP address, it is
often necessary to address multiple L3 entities within each of these systems with their own IP
addresses that are unique (at least) within the IP network.
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IP Addressing

 IANA has reserved a few addresses that can be freely used in a private network controlled and managed
by a private organization (such as an enterprise or a utility).
 As long as these private networks do not connect to the Internet or other private networks, there is no
ambiguity.
 These addresses are: 10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255 (roughly 16 million addresses), 172.16.0.0 through
172.31.255.255 (16 groups of roughly 64,000 addresses), and 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255 (about 250
groups of roughly 250 addresses each).
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Routers and Routing

 The nodes in an IP network are called routers.

 A router is responsible for routing every packet received by it (from an endpoint or another
router) to its intended destination endpoint. An IP packet contains the IP address of the L3
entity in the destination endpoint.
 Each router maintains a routing table that maps the IP address of every L3 destination entity to
the next system (router or endpoint) in the path to the destination of the packet. For a small
network with a limited number of addressable L3 entities, the routing tables can be configured
in the routers manually (static routing).
 However, for larger networks, such preconfigured routing tables do not scale. More important,
when there is router failure or a network link failure, a packet may fail to reach the destination:
even if another path around the faulty router or link exists in the network, the packet will
continue to be routed to a failed node or over a failed link.
 To prevent this from occurring, routing tables must be updated in response to changes in the
network. For this purpose, routing tables are created, modified, and otherwise maintained using
routing protocols between the nodes and, in some cases, between the nodes and, in some
cases, between the nodes and the endpoints.
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Routing Protocols

 Typical routing protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) determine and maintain an optimal path
between every pair of endpoints.
 Measures of optimality are supported by the protocols using metrics such as minimum number of nodes (hops)
between every pair of destinations, or delays and link capacities of the links between the routers. OSPF
belong to a class of routing protocols called Interior Gateway Protocols – IGPs.
 The routing table in a router is then updated to map the destination address to the next router on the optimal
path to the destination.
 These routing protocols provide for information exchange between routers, initially to create the network
topology for determining optimal paths and for creating the routing table, and then for periodically detecting
network failures to allow recalculation of optimal paths and modification of routing tables.
 Thus, in addition to supporting data transfer between endpoints, the network links also carry data required for
exchanging routing protocol information concerning the links connecting the routers. Further, each router is
responsible for supporting data transfer between the endpoints as well as for management of the network
including management of the routing protocols and routing tables. Thus, there are two different planes
combined within a router – the management plane supports the management of L3 and lower layers
including routing. The data plane is responsible for receiving, (possibly) storing, and forwarding data for data
transfer between the endpoints.
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IP: Connectionless Service

 IP does not have any procedures for guaranteeing packet delivery, packet error detection or
correction (except for error detection of the packet header only, so that the packet is discarded
if the received header is in error), or acknowledgment procedures for reliable packet delivery.
 Lower layers(such as Ethernet or Frame Relay) may provide these functions.
 The upper layers(L4) may implement features for reliable data delivery between the
corresponding endpoint entities as needed.
 IP has no procedures for establishing a connection between a pair of endpoints prior to the
transfer of packets between them.
 Every packet is independently and individually delivered to the destination.
 A packet may get lost in the network (e.g., if the frame at L2 layer carrying the packet is
discarded because of an error). In some cases, there is also the possibility of a packet being
delivered again (a duplicate packet) at the destination. Thus, the service provided by the IP layer
is a connectionless service.
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IP: Quality of Service

 Quality of service (QoS) in IP networks refers to the IP network providing preferential treatment to data from
certain priority applications over data from other applications. The most common example in the NSP IP
networks and many enterprise IP networks is preferential treatment given to VoIP traffic over traffic of all other
applications carried by the network.
 Such preferential treatment is necessary, since voice quality is degraded if the VoIP packets are delayed in
the network, experience large jitter (i.e., large variation in the delivery time of the successive packets of the
VoIP packet stream), and/or suffer significant packet loss.
 Often the next on the priority list after VoIP are the data traffic for video, critical business applications traffic,
and the noncritical data traffic (called “best effort”), in that order.
 The need for QoS arises since, at times, network links and/or the routers may be congested with heavy traffic
volume, with limited capacity of links and/or limited router buffer storage capacity to store packets. This leads
to delays since the packets may have to remain in the router buffers awaiting their turn for transmission.
Buffer congestion may lead to packet loss, since incoming packets may be discarded if buffer space is
unavailable; hence the need for QoS.
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IP: Quality of Service

 IP includes a TOS byte in its header. The source endpoint (or the application therein) may insert
an appropriate code in the TOS byte to identify the application that generated that packet.
 Using the content of the TOS byte, the router may then provide preferential treatment for that
packet, forwarding it ahead of packets with TOS byte values denoting lower priority
applications. This procedure ensures that high-priority packets do not get dropped from the
buffer before packets of lower priorities.
 There are several standards which address QoS. Networking product vendors provide different
QoS implementations including vendor-proprietary implementations. Because of the extreme
delay and priority requirements for many applications such as teleprotection, synchrophasors,
and SCADA, QoS support is very important in Smart Grid networks.
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TCP and UDP

 There are two transport layer protocol standards defined over IP – Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and
the User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
 However, some applications may not use either of these or any other L4 protocol
 As indicated earlier, IP delivers individual packets from the source to the destination based on the
destination IP address. The connection-oriented TCP provides reliable delivery of L4 layer messages from the
source L4 entity, called the source port, to the destination port.
 TCP provides acknowledgment of each packet sent by the source port. Lost packets are detected and
retransmitted. In addition to supporting acknowledgment and retransmission procedures, sequence
numbers in the L4 header are used to reassemble the L4 message from the received packets.
 TCP also provides for a 2-byte checksum that detects errors in the entire IP packet. Thus, the error detection
is supported end-to-end at the L4 layer. TCP is considered a heavyweight protocol, since it requires router
and link resources for support of its reliability features.
 TCP’s header is at least 20 bytes long and includes the designation and source port numbers, sequence
number and acknowledgment, checksum, and other parameters.
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 UDP is a connectionless and lightweight protocol. It adds little additional overhead to packet
(called datagram in this context) delivery over that of IP. The delivery of a datagram is not
guaranteed – it may be lost in the network.
 There are applications that may use UDP because of its very low processing overhead and/or
because delivery guarantee is either not required or not appropriate due to time sensitivity of
data.
 For example, there is no value in retransmitting a VoIP packet after its loss, as the retransmitted
packet would reach the destination too late to be useful. The UDP header is 8 bytes long and
includes the destination port number and the length of the datagram. Note that UDP is defined
between endpoints. The intermediate routers do not participate in UDP protocol.
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