Software Defined based smart grid architecture

The diversity, continuous expansion and the large number of smart grid resources increase the complexity of such systems and arise the need to find a new way to manage these resources and, at the same time, reduce the complexity in the control and monitoring operations. Moreover, smart grid Systems are considered critical systems requiring reliable and real time data delivery and an efficient, flexible, scalable control solution to satisfy the system requirements. Thus, in this paper, we introduce a new architecture model for smart grid networks based on the Software Defined Systems (SDSys) paradigm. The main idea behind the SDSys revolves around abstracting the control plane out of the data plane and setting it at a separate layer in the middleware. Different forms of SDSys like Software Defined Network (SDN), Software Defined Storage (SDStore), Software Defined Security (SDSec) and Software Defined Internet of Things (SDIoT) are used to provide a comprehensive smart grid control solution which hide the complexity that exists in traditional control techniques. Meanwhile, we show how the proposed model can provide an accurate, reliable, secure, extensible and network-aware architecture design for smart grid network. Furthermore, we explain how it can provide a single point of view for all smart grid resources and a programmable interface to adapt the network for any sudden changes.