Re: [smartpower-interest] Smart Grid Architecture Committee meeting 17 February

Fred, is the full document from NERC publically available?

On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Fred Baker <fred@cisco.com> wrote:

> I am forwarding in case you folks have not seen this. It is the proposed IP
> architecture from NERC, which is a US regulatory body.
>
> One important statement it makes is:
>
>  A final note is that this document will not make the distinction between
>> IP version 4 or version 6 for the purpose of analysis or standardization.
>>  The point is simply to support IP with the version number left to be an
>> implementation detail determined by the utility or service provider that
>> would install the AMI network.  That being said, any competent network
>> planner can easily do the math - many investor-owned utilities have
>> literally millions of electric meters installed (a distinct challenge in a
>> version 4 environment), with this "volume problem" being compounded by the
>> presence of other devices including some quantity of electric vehicles as
>> potential roaming users in the future.  That means the utility would either
>> have to use IPv4 very judiciously and replicate private IP space over and
>> over again, or move to IPv6 and address a greater number of devices
>> uniquely.
>>
>
>
> This is not as strong a statement re IPv6 as the IETF and ARIN have
> proposed, but is at least a sensible one in the near term.
>
> The architecture doesn't say a lot about security, but does say this:
>
>  The C12.22 protocol also includes AES-128 security mechanisms. Additional
>> IP transport security protocols may be provided to enhance and preserve the
>> upper layer security provisions but not as a substitute of such.
>>
>
> Personally, I think that's an inadequate statement. The key issues are in
> identification, authentication, authorization, and confidentiality where
> appropriate. It would be really nice if
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-mcgrew-fundamental-ecc-01 were approved
> as "suite b", and the architecture could specify the use of "suite b
> cryptographic standards". For those that don't know what that means, it
> refers to the use of elliptic curve public key cryptography without the IPR
> considerations that have crippled the industry's ability to use it. AES,
> while a very worthwhile technology, is symmetric key, which means in the AMI
> that the key is not in fact secret - it is known by and communicated among
> at least two parties. The lack of a key management infrastructure is a
> problem, which I would entertain useful proposals for.
>
>
> The architecture focuses, surprisingly, not on the use of TCP/UDP and IP
> (v4 or v6), but on the place of the ANSI C12 series management applications.
> Given that those are in the most recent filing moved from "mandatory" to
> "should be considered", that is interesting. One thing that would help,
> perhaps, is a description of how NetConf could be used instead, and an
> openly-defined XML-based schema (from OASYS perhaps?) that could be
> exchanged using it. I'm not going to write that, but would entertain
> submissions.
>
>
>
>
> http://www.ipinc.net/IPv4.GIF
>
>
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>

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Joe DiAdamo,P. Eng.
joe.diadamo@gmail.com
416-300-1558