IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2016 - 82

table 4. Common terms and their definitions.
Term

Definition

Canonical CIM

An abstract model of domain or data exchange (IEC CIM UML).

Profile

A restriction of canonical CIM, a small subset of it as required for a specific interface for external data
exchanges. We use a profiling tool to reduce canonical CIM to the desired content, and the tool produces a
schema that will govern the format of the instance data to be exchanged.

Payload

An instance of Profile according to a given syntax. We currently use XML complying with RDFS or XSD.

Message

An instance of message envelope, e.g., Message.xsd (IEC 61968-100), that includes one or more Payloads.
It also contains the full context of data exchange (verb, noun, etc.) to let the receiver know what to do with
the received payload.

Model

Data that describes an existing entity or thing.

Full model

A complete description of an electrical network model.

Incremental model

An incremental description of an electrical network model. The incremental model may contain one
or more changes (add, delete or update) that are based on a full model and contains the same identifier
in both models.

Instance data

A data set that is defined by a schema provided in the Profile. Instance data is exchanged as a payload.

from payload 3 before consuming a reference (payload 4),
although technically the payloads could be consumed in
any order. Payload 4 serialization would typically be implemented such that the "Proxy" object is a lightweight reference by mrID (here 3), while payload 3 might contain a
detailed description of the properties of mrID 3.

Conclusions
when it was originally envisioned, the goal of the cIm was
to provide interoperability between systems, allow data
exchanges to be easily defined and implemented, and enable
an enterprise architecture that would shorten the time to
integration. These goals have taken several years to complete, and the cIm today will continue to be improved as
new uses emerge and new requirements are identified.
The extensive canonical model, that is the cIm, provides
the common semantics that is used to generate standard
and custom profiles for use in data exchange and enterprise
integration. The cIm profiling approach makes the definition of exchange payloads consistent, where both producers
and consumers agree upon meaning. But additionally, and
perhaps more importantly, the receiver has a clear understanding of how data from multiple sources, spanning multiple profiles and exchange technologies, can be readily and
unambiguously composed into a cohesive model suitable for
business analysis. as such, profiles and the profile methodology provide the foundation to reach the above stated goals.
They support data exchange between applications or systems and provide an integration framework to connect disparate systems into a complete enterprise architecture while
enabling full interoperability.

Definitions
Table 4 provides common terms and their definitions.

ieee power & energy magazine

For Further Reading
l. osterlund, K. hunter, K. Demaree, m. Goodrich, T. Kostic,
B. Iverson, and Iec Tc57 model managers. cIm modelling
guide, posted as a working document on the cImug site under current model releases. [online]. available: http://cimug.
ucaiug.org/cIm%20model%20releases/forms/allItems.aspx
electric Power research Institute report. (2015, July 1).
common information model primer, 3rd ed. [online]. available: http://www.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/Productabstract.
aspx?ProductId=000000003002006001
a. devos. (2000, oct.). simplified rDf syntax for power
system model exchange. [online]. available: http://www.
langdale.com.au/Daf/Psmodelexchange.Pdf
a. devos, s. widergren, and J. Zhu, "Xml for cIm model exchange," in Proc. 22nd IEEE Int. Conf. Power Industry Computer Applications (PICA), sydney, australia, may
2001, pp. 31-37.

Biographies
Lars-Ola Österlund is with aBB enterprise software,
västerås, sweden.
Kurt Hunter is with siemens Digital Grid, minnetonka,
minnesota.
Kendall Demaree is with alstom Grid, Inc., redmond,
washington.
Margaret Goodrich is with Project consultants, llc,
shell Knob, missouri.
Alan McMorran is with open Grid systems ltd.,
Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Becky Iverson is with omnetric Group, minnetonka,
minnesota.
Tatjana Kostic is with aBB corporate research, BadenDaettwil, switzerland.
p&e

january/february 2016

http://cimug http://www.ucaiug.org/cIm model releases/forms/allItems.aspx http://www.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/Productabstract http://www http://langdale.com.au/Daf/Psmodelexchange.Pdf

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