MOXA’s Dual Protocol Approach: MMS and SNMP

MOXA has announced to support a dual protocol approach in their communication infrastructure: IEC 61850/MMS and SNMP.

This is no surprise: already in the first year of standardization of IEC61850 EdF (France) proposed to use SNMP (simple network management protocol) to carry IEC 61850 payload modeled in a specialized MIB. There was very little support for SNMP.

It is natural that the communication infrastructure also provides IEC 61850/MMS access to the many data objects used in switches, routers and other equipment. IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2 has a lot of new – communication related – logical nodes that are linked directly to network management like “Physical communication channel supervision” logical node (LCCH):

RxCnt - Number of received messages
RedRxCnt - Number of received messages on redundant channel
TxCnt - Number of sent messages

This is related to the communication infrastructure … Or?

Click HERE for details from MOXA.

MOXA concludes in a White paper:

“Moxa’s new line of PowerTrans IEC 61850 switches now come with full MMS compatibility, with a complete implementation of IEC 61850 data modeling and a built-in MMS server. Our entire line of substation computers, switches, and other associated hardware all still feature our own enhanced SNMP support (with custom MIB files), but Moxa welcomes any inquiry into further customizing our switches, embedded computers, and other substation IT hardware with full or enhanced MMS support, made to your order.”