Managing information in a wireless environment

Jeff Newman explains the importance of implementing wireless technology into the energy grid.

With billions in stimulus dollars committed by the US government, as well as governments across the globe, the energy grid is finally getting the long overdue attention to update and modernize the infrastructure. Whether supplying or consuming energy, bringing more real-time information to everyone arguably improves decision-making, thus leading to operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Many utilities are incorporating wireless communications both at the meter and at points throughout the network to remotely do meter reads, monitor sensors/sites, as well as set triggers to improve information flow and visibility. However, managing a multitude of connections from multiple technologies - PLC, cellular, RFID and others to name a few - creates a challenge unto itself. The ultimate goal is being able to manage large-scale wireless deployments in a consistent manner regardless of technology. It comes back to getting access to the information to manage your business without technology creating a barrier.

There is always a balance of implementing new technologies while bringing together older disparate systems. The immense growth in the internet has brought the opportunity to standardize on a stable technology, and retain backward compatibility, throughout the multi-year deployment of systems. Utilizing the internet backbone, and internet protocol (IP), to standardize how systems communicate has enabled significant reductions in maintenance and deployment time.

In the wireless world, there are many nuances with the various networks. Standardizing on packet-based connectivity can provide the bridge to bring together new and older systems in a cohesive manner. However, in an IP world, you fire and forget. Your application shouldn't have to keep track of whether or not your devices are physically connected to the network, a frequent occurrence for wireless. Nor should the application need to understand the idiosyncrasies of the various wireless networks. The application should be truly network and connection agnostic. 

To solve the problem, system middleware, often referred to as a services gateway, provides connection and network management, as well as back-end enterprise application support becomes a critical element of your system deployment. The best services gateways include capabilities that accelerate system integration by taking care of issues such as device application programming interfaces (APIs) that have a steep learning curve. These capabilities make it possible for the utility to focus on the 'business logic' that must be programmed into their software rather than learning how to communicate with devices and manage them. Simplified device configuration and/or provisioning is also a key element to look for in creating a flexible, long-lived solution. Incorporating the capabilities such as provisioning groups of devices at one time, utilizing built-in reporting, configuration profiles and network management in a user-friendly GUI can help ease the typical pain points of deployments. 

Once the system has been designed, built and deployed, ongoing maintenance comes into play. As needs change, it is sometimes necessary to update or reconfigure these devices. This becomes feasible with capabilities that make it easy to deliver firmware updates, software upgrades and other necessary device changes. Perhaps it's just changing the reporting and/or business logics for triggering specific events, but it's being able to do so in a mouse click versus complex programming. The service gateway manages and maintains complicated session and device management logic for how devices are utilized.

The second part, and perhaps more importantly, is getting the information securely from these wireless devices back to enterprise applications and databases for real-time decision-making. A good service gateway will automatically organize and parse the device information for transfer directly into the application, using standard data formats.

All of this serves the broader vision: provide decision makers with valuable, real-time information needed to make more profitable decisions in the most efficient and cost effective manner.

Jeff Newman joined Enfora in June 2001 as vice president of business development and recently added the role of Chief Strategy Officer. As CSO, he is responsible for setting corporate strategy and identifying, developing and managing new business opportunities for Enfora's next-generation wireless products.