IEC 61850 MMS

What is IEC 61850 MMS?
IEC 61850 MMS
IEC 61850 MMS (Manufacturing Message Specification) is a client/server based protocol for communications between IEDs (IED – Intelligent Electronic Device) and higher level entities (such as RTUs and SCADAs) over Ethernet.
It is part of the IEC 61850 standard for communication technology in substations and allows to access the server through its IP address in order to write/read data and exchange files.
- MMS was originally developed by General Motors for communications in automated manufacturing systems.
- It is defined in ISO 9506 and based on the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model.
- It provides a range of functions that allows the client to obtain the data model of the server, read or modify individual values, delete entries as well as transfer files.
- When an action is performed, the client sends a request to the server, which processes the request and responds to the client, also stating whether the request was processed successfully.
- The MMS protocol is not only used by IEC 61850 for communication in substations. There are several more areas of application for the MMS protocol in smart grids, as for example the IEC 61400–25 standard for communication and monitoring in wind power plants. or the IEC 60870–6 telecontrol protocol, often used for communication between control centers.
- The IEC 62351–4 standard defines several security measures to protect the communication via MMS in order to mitigate the risks associated with the wide use of MMS in smart grids, .

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IEC 61850
The GOOSE (Generic Object Oriented Substation Event) protocol is a communication model defined by the IEC 61850 standard, which uses fast and reliable mechanisms to group any format of data (status, value) into a data set and transmit it through electrical networks within a time period of 4 milliseconds.
It is most commonly used for data exchanges between IEDs (IED – Intelligent Electronic Device) in electrical substations over Ethernet.
IEC 61850 MMS (Manufacturing Message Specification) is a client/server based protocol for communications between IEDs (IED – Intelligent Electronic Device) and higher level entities (such as RTUs and SCADAs) over Ethernet that is part of the IEC 61850 standard for communication technology in substations.
It is mapped onto TCP/IP and allows to access the server through its IP address in order to write/read data and exchange files.
The IEC 61850 standard for substation automation specifies a standardized Substation Configuration Language (SCL) to transfer device descriptions and communication parameters amongst different vendors/ manufacturers.
SCL files define several capability subsets for the IED to instantiate its capabilities.
The IED Capability Description (ICD) file is a specific type of SCL file, which are the configuration files defined by the IEC 61850 standard for modern substation automation.
It is usually supplied by manufacturers and defines the full capability range of an IED.
Logical nodes (abstract data objects) are the main elements of the virtual object-oriented IEC 61850 model, which consists of standardized data and data attributes.
They can represent switches in the grid, sensors, communication interfaces, or simply contain descriptions of devices.
IEC 61850 MMS & iGrid
iGrid T&D has a special commitement to interoperability and IEC 61850 in particular. For this reason, iGrid has developed a special tool “iConfICD” to configure IEC 61850 RTUs, SCADAs, I/O Extension units and other devices for IEC 61850 projects.
All iGrid devices and software solutions support the IEC 61850 MMS protocol

iRTU – With I/Os for Direct Data Acquisition

iGW‑S Substation Gateway
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