Understanding Head End Systems

Head end systems are systems that collect measurement data and meter events for eventual submission to the application. Many devices can communicate to the application through a single head-end system, but a utility may have numerous head-end systems through which they communicate with devices.

Head end systems utilize processing methods that specify the type of initial measurement data and device events to create for devices (and their related measuring components) based on measuring component type. Head end systems also utilize processing methods that specify how smart meter commands are processed.

Refer to Understanding Processing Methods for more information about processing methods.

Head End Systems Impact Data Import and Export

Head end systems are configured to identify how a particular external system communicates data with Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management. This includes:

The identifier type used to locate devices and measuring components. These are used both on import and export of data.
The date/time format used in various data imports (i.e. whether or not the date/time format includes time zone information).

Please refer to the embedded help for more information about these fields.

Each head end system can be associated to an external system which is used to define the messages that can be sent to that service provider and how each message is sent.