E.1.1: Relationship Of Clients And Servers In Iec 61850 - Electro Industries Shark 200 Installation & Operation Manual

• The IEC 61850 standard specifies a layered approach to the specification of
devices. The layered approach allows "future-proofing" of basic functionality by
allowing individual "stack" components to be upgraded as technology progresses.
• The individual objects within devices are addressed through a hierarchy of names
rather than numbers.
• Each object has precise, standard terminology across the entire vendor community.
• Devices can provide an online description of their data model.
• A complete (offline) description language defines the way all of the parts of the sys-
tem are handled, giving a consistent view of all components within the system.
The IEC 61850 standard was developed for electrical substation automation, but has
been applied to Distributed Energy resources, distribution line equipment, hydro-elec-
tric power plants, and wind power plants.

E.1.1: Relationship of Clients and Servers in IEC 61850

The understanding of the roles of clients and servers and publishers and subscribers is
key to the use of IEC 61850 devices.
A client is the requester (sink) of information while the server is the responder
(source) of information. Information generally flows on a request-response basis with
the client issuing the request and the server issuing the response. However, the con-
cept of servers is extended to provide autonomous transmissions when "interesting"
events occur within the server. This information flow is always to the client requesting
this "interesting information." Clients are the devices or services which "talk" to IEC
61850 servers. The function of the client is to configure the server "connection," set
up any dynamic information in the server, enable the reporting mechanisms, and pos-
sibly interrogate specific information from the server. Most clients are relatively pas-
sive devices which await information from the server but perform little direct ongoing
interactions with them except for control operations.
Some clients are used for diagnostic purposes. These devices generally perform ongo-
ing direct interrogation of the servers. A specific example is the "desktop client,"
where the engineer remotely diagnoses system problems or retrieves data which is
not normally sent from the server (for example, power quality information).
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The Leader In Power Monitoring and Smart Grid Solutions
E: Using the IEC61850 Network Card
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Doc E149701 E-2