Development and testing of an SNMP-based integrated management system for heterogeneous power line communication networks

Power line communication (PLC) is an evolving technology which uses existing power lines for data transmission. Like any other communication network, PLC networks need to be managed to ensure efficient use of resources and secure operations. Currently, major PLC chip vendors are trying to provide network management solutions based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) by developing their own management systems, but they cannot manage heterogeneous PLC networks comprised of PLC devices from various PLC chip vendors. In this paper, we provide our experience of developing and testing an integrated management system for a heterogeneous PLC network based on SNMP. We present our approach for integrated management by defining the common PLC management information base (MIB) and an integrated PLC proxy agent for providing interoperability to legacy PLC devices which do not support the common PLC MIB. We also present the development of an integrated PLC network management system and its test in heterogeneous PLC networks deployed in South Korea. The contribution of our work is to provide a guideline for developing and testing integrated NMSs for any heterogeneous networks including PLC networks. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Power Line Communication (PLC) is an evolving technology which uses existing power lines for data transmission. Like any other communication network, PLC networks need to be managed to ensure efficient use of resources and secure operations. Currently, major PLC chip vendors are trying to provide network management solutions based on Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) by developing their own management systems. But they cannot manage heterogeneous PLC networks comprised of PLC devices from various PLC chip vendors. In this paper, we provide our experience of developing and testing an integrated management system for a heterogeneous PLC network based on SNMP.