Silver Spring Networks Command Flows

Configuring Communication Types for Job Status Polling

The following outbound communication business objects (from the table above) all have corresponding communication types that must be configured before outbound communications based on those business objects can be created. The table below lists the communication type business objects used with each.

Refer to  Communication Types for more information about communication types.

Get Job Status Polling Parameters and Polling Modes

The Get Job Status Polling parameters on these communication types are used to define how polling works with outbound communications of the corresponding type. These include Retry Frequency parameters (the minimum amount of time (expressed as hours:minutes:seconds) the system will wait between polling iterations for jobs created by communications of this type) and Maximum Retries parameters (the maximum number of times the system will try to poll for the status of jobs created by communications of this type), which must be configured in order to use these outbound communications.

There are two modes of polling:

• Initial polling occurs immediately and within the same transaction as any previous portion of the command. This setting is useful when the head end is expected to quickly complete the job (within a few seconds). To use Initial polling, define values for the Initial Polling Retry Frequency  and Initial Polling Maximum Retries parameters.

• Out of Process  polling occurs within its own transaction triggered either separately by a user or by a batch process. This mode is useful when the head end system is likely to take more than a few seconds to complete the job. The Polling Retry Frequency and Polling Maximum Retries parameters are used with Out of Process polling. If these parameters are not configured on the communication type, the values defined in the SSN - Get Job Status Configuration section of the Silver Spring Networks Version Master Configuration are used in their place.

Refer to the Get Job Status Polling embedded help on the above communication types for more information about polling modes and parameters.

Polling and Batch Processing

When a communication enters the "Polling Ready" state, it polls the head end system via a Get Status Outbound Communication. If the initial polling parameters have been exceeded (or the initial polling parameters were not defined), the communication transitions to the "Polling in Progress" state. Communications in this state can be transitioned using the Outbound Communication Polling - Monitor (D7-OCPL) batch process (or the Poll Job Status button in the Outbound Communication zone in the Communication portal.)

If using the Outbound Communication Polling - Monitor (D7-OCPL) batch process, the system should be configured to run the process frequently (every few minutes).

Polling and the creation of Get Job Status outbound communications requires  the following "Get Job Status" processing method be defined for the Silver Spring Networks head end system:

• Processing Role: Get Job Status

• Default Business Object: SSN - Get Job Status for Polling (D7-GetJobStatusDRP)

See  Silver Spring Networks Processing Methods  for more information about processing methods used with Silver Spring Networks.

Unit of Measure Filtering for On-Demand Reads

Readings returned via On-Demand Read commands are filtered on the combination of Unit of Measure/Time of Use/Service Quantity Identifiers (UOM/TOU/SQI) configured for the device and measuring component. When filtering is enabled, only readings that match a configured UOM/TOU/SQI combination are processed. All others are filtered out.

Filtering is enabled by default via the “Opt Out Of Filtering” parameter (set to "false" by default) on the D7-CCOMPEVSR (SSN - Create Completion Event Scalar) algorithm on the Create Completion Events status of the D7-MeterReadResultsScalar (SSN - Meter Read Results (Scalar)) business object (for scalar on-demand read commands) and/or on the D7-CCEVTINDR (SSN - Create Completion Event Interval) algorithm on the Create Completion Events status of the D7-MeterReadResultsInterval (SSN - Meter Read Results (Interval)) business object (for interval on-demand read commands).

When filtering is enabled, the “Filter if invalid external MC identifier” parameter on the D7-CCOMPEVSR and D7-CCEVTINDR algorithms controls what should happen if a measuring component cannot be found using the MC Identifier Number sent from the head end system. When set to 'Yes' and no measuring component is found, the initial measurement will be filtered. When set to 'No' and no measuring component is found, the system will attempt to find the measuring component using the UOM and TOU. The value of the “Filter if invalid external MC identifier” on the D7-CCOMPEVSR and D7-CCEVTINDR algorithms must match the value of the “Error if invalid external MC identifier” parameter on the D1-DER-SPRMC algorithm on the IMD Seeder (D1-IMDSeeder) business object. The parameters should both be set to either ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Deprecated Outbound Communications

The outbound communication business objects listed in the table above replace the following outbound communication business objects, which will be deprecated in a future release.