Is IEC 61850 an old Standard?

What do you think? It depends ... IEC 61850 is a standard series of many parts ... published in different years ...

The other day I was reading that somebody on LinkedIn beliefs that IEC 61850 is old ... Oops. Here is what I answered:

I was involved in the development of MMS (ISO 9506, starting mid 1980s), later in ICCP (TASE.2, IEC 60870-6, using MMS), then IEC 61850 (starting 1995, using as well the "old" MMS). 

The AC interconnected power systems have been developed more than 130 years ago ... and improved since then ... AND: Yet we do not complain that they are OLD. They have done a great job. Old wine may be better than young wine ... or?

The standard series IEC 61850 has many aspects to consider: 

• System Configuration Language (SCL, IEC 61850-6) is brand new! 
• GOOSE and sampled values are brand new! 
• The many standard "signals" like MMXU.Hz for frequency measurement are old in the sense that frequency is a physical given.
• There is something we may call "old": the use of the "old" MMS as the protocol for client/server communication according to IEC 61850-8-1 (-8-2). ok.
• There is an alternative new web-based solution under way: IEC 61850-8-3 (a new protocol for client/server in IEC 61850 ... WebSocket transport, ASN.1 message schema, ASN.1 JSON encoding rules, and ASN.1 DER encoding rules).

If you want to learn why the Netherlands DSOs initiated the IEC 61850-8-3, check HERE.

A great reply says: "The transport choice is what stands out: MMS was never reachable from a browser, WebSocket with JSON encoding is, which changes what client tooling can be without an install."

There are other brand new parts of IEC 61850 just published, e.g., IEC 61850-7-410 for hydro, gas, and steam power plants.

Are WebSockets the future for real-time communication?

WebSockets provide a way for web browsers and cloud apps to talk directly to devices for automation and monitoring. A WebSockets create a two-way open communication channel. It wraps messages (according to various message schema, e.g. in ASN.1 notation) in web-friendly formats like JSON. This bypasses strict firewall rules without needing complex, heavy software.

WebSockets are used in many solutions like OPC UA, OpenADR, ... and soon in IEC 61850-8-3 (alternative for MMS). 

How do WebSockets perform in a PLC environment where usually special industrial communication protocols are used? An interesting paper discusses this question:

"Latency Analysis of WebSocket and Industrial Protocols ..."

WebSockets are likely to becoming the future standardized web-based "carrier". 

The Netherlands Distribution Service Operator have shown with a PoC (proof of concept, now used for the definition of IEC 61850-8-3) that standardized (!) WebSockets can exchange IEC 61850 standard(!) messages containing data values produced and consumed by the huge amount of standardized (!) IEC 61850 models, configured by a standardized configuration (!) language (SCL, IEC 61850-6), and encoded in a standard (!) JSON format.

Background information can be found in my video

Feedback on LinkedIn: "This presentation made everything much clearer! But seriously, using WebSockets as a transport for industrial protocols is a really good idea."