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Smart Grid networks are being designed and deployed to provide intelligence in the management and delivery of both power and information services to businesses and consumers. The testing of these Critical Infrastructure IP services is quite important from a functional, resilience, interoperability and security standpoint. For example, utilities are
clamoring for automated testing so they deliver electrical power more
cost-effectively. The new "Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements" draft
(PDF), which is open for comment, covers various potential security
issues with the grid, as well as privacy risks of the smart grid.
These new networks leverage IP technology packaged within Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components, so it’s legitimate to describe Smart Grids as “IP Services.”
The classic challenges of IP services are definitely present in the Smart Grid space: The technology is rapidly evolving, while each product or deployment is unique and highly customized. These issues greatly compound the complexity of the system, which is comprised of IP services with different protocol implementations from a variety of vendors, all of which must work together seamlessly to deliver a functioning service.
To facilitate that progress, what is needed is a way to test Smart Grid products or deployments as a system. The key to testing IP services is to accurately model the service, derive thousands or millions of test cases from data sets associated with that model, and to leverage the model into a variety of types of testing:
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