The IEC GOOSE The original UCA GOOSE message uses the OSI type Ethernet Frame, and

lacks provisions for priority tagging normally found on Ethernet II type systems. Regardless of its short length, UCA GOOSE is relatively inefficient, using a total of 259 bytes to transfer only 96 bit pairs / 24 bytes of user-controlled information. Recent standardization efforts within the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC61850-7-2) resulted with a number of enhancements to the original GOOSE specification. Details of this work can be summarized as follows: 1 Unique Ethernet frame type was reserved with IEEE 2Layer 2 priority tagging was added to the specification making it possible to isolate time critical protection traffic from HMI, SCADA, and other lower priority network traffic. 3The IEC GOOSE supports Virtual LANs or VLANs. A VLAN is a group of devices that reside in the same broadcast domain, that is, if an Ethernet Broadcast message is sent on a particular VLAN, only the devices configured on that particular VLAN will see the broadcast message. The new feature facilitates the transmission of information from one location to only those devices on the same VLAN. 4Message was split into two sub types and renamed as follows: 0 o GSSE is a new name for the message format, which is backwards compatible with the UCA 2.0 GOOSE. 1 o GOOSE is a name given to a new enhanced IEC data frame (Although very confusing, this naming approach should not have major impact on the user community, and is expected to be handled by the device manufacturers.) 5New IEC GOOSE was made leaner by eliminating some of the data overhead associated with the original UCA GOOSE specification. 6New IEC GOOSE has removed the DNA block and bit pair specification, converting the entire user data payload into a data pool that can be freely configured to transfer any type of information (logic bits, characters, bytes, integers, floating point numbers etc.). 7The new IEC GOOSE allows message length to be configurable, thus extending IEC GOOSE length from the original 259 bytes up to a maximum 34 1permitted Ethernet frame size (1518 bytes). The original limitation that all information must be contained within a single GOOSE message has been retained. 2 New GOOSE supports additional services for interrogation of individual data set elements names (self description). MANAGED SWITCHES AND ADVANCED LAYER 2 FEATURES Managed Ethernet switches offer advantages over their unmanaged counterparts. Through the use of SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) they allow reporting of fault conditions such as loss of link, frame errors, and a variety of other statistical data about the network that can be used to monitor and detect problems early in their evolution.

Furthermore, managed switches offer advanced Layer 2 features that are useful for realtime control and substation automation. These include: 1 IEEE 802.1p Priority Queuing which allows frames to be tagged with different priority levels in order to ensure that real-time critical traffic always makes it through the network even during high periods of congestion. 2IEEE 802.1Q VLAN which allows for the segregation and grouping of IEDs into virtual LANs in order to isolate real-time IEDs from data collection or less critical IEDs. 3IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree that allows for the creation of fault tolerant ring network architectures. 4Vendor-specific path-protection algorithms for ring network architectures can be faster than the generic Rapid Spanning Tree algorithm that has to handle Mesh networks as well. 5Filtering that allows for multicast data frames, such as GOOSE frames, to be filtered and assigned only to those IEDs which request to listen to them. NETWORK ARCHITECTURES; There are three basic network architectures (Cascading, Ring, and Star) that are commonly implemented with Ethernet Switches with numerous variations and hybrids of the three. Each of the three basic architectures offers various performance vs. cost trade-offs. 48