Roll                                                             D. Popa
Internet-Draft                                               M. Gillmore
Intended status: Standards Track                              Itron, Inc
Expires: December 31, 2013                                    L. Toutain
                                                        Telecom Bretagne
                                                                  J. Hui
                                                                   Cisco
                                                                R. Ruben
                                                              Landis+Gyr
                                                               K. Monden
                             Hitachi, Ltd., Yokohama Research Laboratory
                                                               July 2013
Applicability Statement for the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy
                     Networks (RPL) in AMI Networks
                draft-ietf-roll-applicability-ami-07
Abstract
   This document discusses the applicability of RPL in Advanced Metering
   Infrastructure (AMI) networks.
Status of this Memo
   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 31, 2013.
Copyright Notice
   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.
   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/
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   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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   extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text
   as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
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   provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1.  Requirements Language  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.2.  Required Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.3.  Out of scope requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Routing Protocol for LLNs (RPL)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Advanced Metering Infrastructure Description . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.1.  Electric Metering  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.2.  Gas and Water metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Deployment Scenario  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1.  General Considerations on Network Topology . . . . . . . .  6
       4.1.1.  Networks of Electric Meters  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
       4.1.2.  Networks of Gas/Water Meters . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5.  Smart Grid Traffic Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     5.1.  Traffic Characteristics  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       5.1.1.  Smart Metering Data Traffic  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       5.1.2.  Distribution Automation Traffic  . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       5.1.3.  Emerging Applications  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   6.  Description of Smart Grid Communication Paradigm . . . . . . .  9
     6.1.  Source-sink (SS) communication paradigm  . . . . . . . . .  9
     6.2.  Publish-subscribe (PS, or pub/sub) communication paradigm   9
     6.3.  Peer-to-peer (P2P) communication paradigm  . . . . . . . .  9
     6.4.  Peer-to-multipeer (P2MP) communication paradigm  . . . . .  9
     6.5.  Additional considerations: Duocast and N-cast  . . . . . .  9
     6.6.  RPL applicability per communication paradigm . . . . . . .  9
   7.  Layer 2 applicability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     7.1.  Wireless technology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     7.2.  PowerLine Communication (PLC) technology . . . . . . . . .  9
   8.  Using RPL to Meet Functional Requirements  . . . . . . . . . .  9
   9.  RPL Profile  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     9.1.  RPL Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       9.1.1.  RPL Instances  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       9.1.2.  Storing vs. Non-Storing Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       9.1.3.  DAO Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       9.1.4.  Path Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       9.1.5.  Objective Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       9.1.6.  DODAG Repair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       9.1.7.  Multicast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       9.1.8.  Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       9.1.9.  P2P communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     9.2.  Description of Layer-two features  . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       9.2.1.  IEEE 802.15.4e MAC sub-layer features  . . . . . . . . 13
       9.2.2.  IEEE P1901.2 MAC sub-layer features  . . . . . . . . . 13
       9.2.3.  Security features provided by MAC sub-layer. . . . . . 13
         9.2.3.1.  IEEE 802.15.4e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
         9.2.3.2.  IEEE P1901.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       9.2.4.  MLE and other things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     9.3.  6LowPAN Options  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     9.4.  Recommended Configuration Defaults and Ranges  . . . . . . 14
       9.4.1.  Trickle Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       9.4.2.  Other Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
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   10. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   11. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     11.1.  Security Considerations during initial deployment . . . . 16
     11.2.  Security Considerations during incremental deployment . . 16
   12. Other Related Protocols  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   13. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   14. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.  Introduction
   Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems enable the
   measurement, configuration, and control of energy, gas and water
   consumption and distribution, through two-way scheduled, on
   exception, and on-demand communication.  AMI networks are composed of
   millions of endpoints, including meters, distribution automation
   elements, and home area network devices.  They are typically inter-
   connected using some combination of wireless technologies and power-
   line communications, along with a backhaul network providing
   connectivity to "command-and-control" management software
   applications at the utility company back office.
1.1.  Requirements Language
   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
1.2.  Required Reading
   TBD
1.3.  Out of scope requirements
   This should list other documents (if any) which deal with situations
   where things are not in scope for this document.  (For instance, the
   AMI document tries to cover both line-powered urban metering
   networks, and energy-constrained metering networks, and also tries to
   deal with rural requirements.  This should be three or four
   documents, so this section should list the limits of what this
   document covers)
2.  Routing Protocol for LLNs (RPL)




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   RPL provides routing functionality for mesh networks that can scale
   up to thousands of resource-constrained devices, interconnected by
   low power and lossy links, and communicating with the external
   network infrastructure through a common aggregation point(s) (e.g., a
   LBR).  RPL builds a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) routing structure
   rooted at the LBR, ensures loop-free routing, and provides support
   for alternate routes, as well as, for a wide range of routing metrics
   and policies.  RPL was designed to operate in energy-constrained
   environments and includes energy-saving mechanisms (e.g., Trickle
   timers) and energy- aware metrics.  RPL's ability to support multiple
   different metrics and constraints at the same time enables it to run
   efficiently in heterogeneous networks composed of nodes and links
   with vastly different characteristics [RFC6551].  This document
   describes the applicability of RPL (as defined in [RFC6550]) to AMI
   deployments.  RPL was designed to meet the following application
   requirements:
   o  Routing Requirements for Urban Low-Power and Lossy Networks
      [RFC5548].
   o  Industrial Routing Requirements in Low-Power and Lossy Networks
      [RFC5673].
   o  Home Automation Routing Requirements in Low-Power and Lossy
      Networks [RFC5826].
   o  Building Automation Routing Requirements in Low-Power and Lossy
      Networks [RFC5867].
   The Routing Requirements for Urban Low-Power and Lossy Networks are
   applicable to AMI networks as well.  The terminology used in this
   document is defined in [I-D.ietf-roll-terminology].
3.  Advanced Metering Infrastructure Description
3.1.  Electric Metering






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   In many deployments, in addition to measuring energy consumption, the
   electric meter network plays a central role in the Smart Grid since
   the device enables the utility company to control and query the
   electric meters themselves and can serve as a backhaul for all other
   devices in the Smart Grid, e.g., water and gas meters, distribution
   automation and home area network devices.  Electric meters may also
   be used as sensors to monitor electric grid quality and to support
   applications such as Electric Vehicle charging.  Electric meter
   networks are composed with up to millions of smart meters (or nodes),
   each of which is resource-constrained in terms of processing power,
   storage capabilities, and communication bandwidth, due to a
   combination of factors including Federal Communications Commission
   (FCC) or other continents' regulations on spectrum use, American
   National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards or other continents'
   regulation on meter behavior and performance, on heat emissions
   within the meter, form factor and cost considerations.  These
   constraints result in a compromise between range and throughput, with
   effective link throughput of tens to a few hundred kilobits per
   second per link, a potentially significant portion of which is taken
   up by protocol and encryption overhead when strong security measures
   are in place.  Electric meters are often interconnected into multi-
   hop mesh networks, each of which is connected to a backhaul network
   leading to the utility company network through a network aggregation
   point, e.g., an LBR (LLN Border Router).
3.2.  Gas and Water metering
   While electric meters typically consume electricity from the same
   electric feed that they are monitoring, gas and water meters
   typically run on a modest source of stored energy (e.g., batteries).








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   In some scenarios, gas and water meters are integrated into the same
   AMI network as the electric meters and may operate as network
   endpoints (rather than routers) in order to prolong their own
   lifetime.  In other scenarios, however, such meters may not have the
   luxury of relying on a fully powered AMI routing infrastructure but
   must communicate through a dedicated infrastructure to reach a LBR.
   This infrastructure can be either powered by the electricity grid, by
   battery-based devices, or ones relying on alternative sources of
   energy (e.g., solar power).
4.  Deployment Scenario
4.1.  General Considerations on Network Topology
   AMI networks are composed of millions of endpoints distributed across
   both urban and rural environments.  Such endpoints include electric,
   gas, and water meters, distribution automation elements, and home
   area network devices.  Devices in the network communicate directly
   with other devices in close proximity using a variety of low-power
   and/or lossy link technologies that are both wireless and wired
   (e.g., IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.15.4(g+e), IEEE P1901.2, and IEEE
   802.11).  In addition to serving as sources and destinations of
   packets, many network elements typically also forward packets and
   thus form a mesh topology.
4.1.1.  Networks of Electric Meters
   In a typical AMI deployment, groups of meters within physical
   proximity form routing domains, each in the order of a 1,000 to
   10,000 meters.  Thus, each electric meter mesh typically has several
   thousand wireless endpoints, with densities varying based on the area
   and the terrain.  For example, apartment buildings in urban centers
   may have hundreds of meters in close proximity, whereas rural areas
   may have sparse node distributions and include nodes that only have a
   small number of network neighbors.  Each routing domain is connected
   to the larger IP infrastructure through one or more LBRs, which
   provide Wide Area Network (WAN) connectivity through various
   traditional network technologies, e.g., Ethernet, cellular, private
   WAN.  Paths in the mesh between a network node and the nearest LBR
   may be composed of several hops or even several tens of hops.
   Powered from the main line, electric meters have less energy
   constraints than battery powered devices, such as gas and water
   meters, and can afford the additional resources required to route
   packets.  In mixed environments, electric meters can provide the
   routing topology while gas and water meters can operate as leaf
   nodes.  Electric meter networks may also serve as transit networks
   for other types of devices, including distribution automation
   elements (e.g., sensors and actuators), and in-home devices.  These
   other devices may utilize a different link-layer technology than the
   one used in the meter network.  The routing protocol operating in
   networks with the topology characteristics described above needs to
   be able to scale with network size and number of forwarding hops, and
   have the ability to handle a wide range of network densities.
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4.1.2.  Networks of Gas/Water Meters
   In the absence of a co-located electric meter network, gas and water
   meters must either connect directly to the larger IP network
   infrastructure or rely on a dedicated routing infrastructure.
   Deploying such infrastructures is a challenging task as the routing
   devices can sometimes only be placed in specific locations and thus
   do not always have access to a continuous energy source.  Battery-
   operated or energy-harvesting (e.g., equipped with solar panels)
   routers are thus often used in these kinds of scenarios.  Due to the
   expected lifetime (10 to 20 years) of such networks and their
   reliance on alternative sources of energy, energy consumption needs
   to be taken into account when designing and deploying them.  There
   are a number of challenging trade-offs and considerations that exist
   in that respect.  One such consideration is that managing a higher
   number of meters per router leads to increased energy consumption.
   However, increasing the number of routers in the network and thus
   reducing the number of meters managed by each router increases
   deployment and maintenance costs.  At the same time, the use of a
   sparser routing infrastructure necessitates the use of higher
   transmit power levels at nodes in the network, which causes increased
   energy consumption.  The deployment and operational needs of energy-
   constrained network infrastructure require the use of routing
   mechanisms that take into account energy consumption, minimize energy
   use and prolong network lifetime.
5.  Smart Grid Traffic Description
5.1.  Traffic Characteristics
5.1.1.  Smart Metering Data Traffic







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   In current AMI deployments, metering applications typically require
   all smart meters to communicate with a few head-end servers, deployed
   in the utility company data center.  Head-end servers generate data
   traffic to configure smart metering devices or initiate queries, and
   use unicast and multicast to efficiently communicate with a single
   device or groups of devices respectively (i.e., Point-to-Multipoint
   (P2MP) communication).  The head-end server may send a single small
   packet at a time to the meters (e.g., a meter read request, a small
   configuration change, service switch command) or a series of large
   packets (e.g., a firmware upgrade across one or even thousands of
   devices).  The frequency of large file transfers, e.g., firmware
   upgrade of all metering devices, is typically much lower than the
   frequency of sending configuration messages or queries.  Each smart
   meter generates Smart Metering Data (SMD) traffic according to a
   schedule (e.g., periodic meter reads), in response to on-demand
   queries (e.g., on-demand meter reads), or in response to some local
   event (e.g., power outage, leak detection).  Such traffic is
   typically destined to a single head-end server.  The bulk of the SMD
   traffic tends to be directed towards the LBR, both in terms of bytes
   (since reports are typically much larger than queries) and in terms
   of number of packets, e.g., some reports have to be split into
   multiple packets due to packet size limitations, periodic reports can
   be sent without requiring a query to be sent for each one first,
   unsolicited events like alarms and outage notifications are only
   generated by the meters and sent towards the LBR.  The SMD traffic is
   thus highly asymmetric, where the majority of the traffic volume
   generated by the smart meters typically goes through the LBRs, and is
   directed from the smart meter devices to the head-end servers, in a
   Multipoint-to-Point (MP2P) fashion.  Current SMD traffic patterns are
   fairly uniform and well-understood.  The traffic generated by the
   head-end server and destined to metering devices is dominated by
   periodic meter reads, while traffic generated by the metering devices
   is typically uniformly spread over some periodic read time-window.
   Smart metering applications typically do not have hard real-time
   constraints, but they are often subject to bounded latency and
   stringent reliability service level agreements.  From a routing
   perspective, SMD applications require efficient P2MP communication
   between the devices in the network and one or more LBRs.  In
   addition, timely loop resolution and broken link repair are needed to
   meet latency requirements.  Finally, the availability of redundant
   paths is important for increasing network reliability.
5.1.2.  Distribution Automation Traffic
   Distribution Automation (DA) applications typically involve a small
   number of devices that communicate with each other in a Point-to-
   Point (P2P) fashion, and may or may not be in close physical
   proximity.  DA applications typically have more stringent latency
   requirements than SMD applications.
5.1.3.  Emerging Applications

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   There are a number of emerging applications such as electric vehicle
   charging.  These applications may require P2P communication and may
   eventually have more stringent latency requirements than SMD
   applications.
6.  Description of Smart Grid Communication Paradigm
6.1.  Source-sink (SS) communication paradigm
   TBD
6.2.  Publish-subscribe (PS, or pub/sub) communication paradigm
   TBD
6.3.  Peer-to-peer (P2P) communication paradigm
   TBD
6.4.  Peer-to-multipeer (P2MP) communication paradigm
   TBD
6.5.  Additional considerations: Duocast and N-cast
   TBD
6.6.  RPL applicability per communication paradigm
   TBD
7.  Layer 2 applicability.
7.1.  Wireless technology
   TODO: Describe features of IEEE 802.15.4g and 802.15.4e.
7.2.  PowerLine Communication (PLC) technology
   TODO: Describe features of IEEE P1901.2 standard.
8.  Using RPL to Meet Functional Requirements
   The functional requirements for most AMI deployments are similar to
   those listed in [RFC5548]:
   o  The routing protocol MUST be capable of supporting the
      organization of a large number of nodes into regions containing on
      the order of 10^2 to 10^4 nodes each.
   o  The routing protocol MUST provide mechanisms to support
      configuration of the routing protocol itself.
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   o  The routing protocol SHOULD support and utilize the large number
      of highly directed flows to a few head-end servers to handle
      scalability.
   o  The routing protocol MUST dynamically compute and select effective
      routes composed of low-power and lossy links.  Local network
      dynamics SHOULD NOT impact the entire network.  The routing
      protocol MUST compute multiple paths when possible.
   o  The routing protocol MUST support multicast and unicast
      addressing.  The routing protocol SHOULD support formation and
      identification of groups of field devices in the network.
   RPL supports the following features:
   o  Scalability: Large-scale networks characterized by highly directed
      traffic flows between each smart meter and the head-end servers in
      the utility network.  To this end, RPL builds a Directed Acyclic
      Graph (DAG) rooted at each LBR.
   o  Zero-touch configuration:  This is done through in-band methods
      for configuring RPL variables using DIO messages, and DIO message
      options.
   o  The use of links with time-varying quality characteristics:  This
      is accomplished by allowing the use of metrics that effectively
      capture the quality of a path (e.g., Expected Transmission Count
      (ETX)) and by limiting the impact of changing local conditions by
      discovering and maintaining multiple DAG parents, and by using
      local repair mechanisms when DAG links break.
9.  RPL Profile
9.1.  RPL Features
9.1.1.  RPL Instances
   RPL operation is defined for a single RPL instance.  However,





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   multiple RPL instances can be supported in multi-service networks
   where different applications may require the use of different routing
   metrics and constraints, e.g., a network carrying both SDM and DA
   traffic.
9.1.2.  Storing vs.  Non-Storing Mode
   In most scenarios, electric meters are powered by the grid they are
   monitoring and are not energy-constrained.  Instead, electric meters
   have hardware and communication capacity constraints that are
   primarily determined by cost, and secondarily by power consumption.
   As a result, different AMI deployments can vary significantly in
   terms of memory size, computation power and communication
   capabilities.  For this reason, the use of RPL storing or non-storing
   mode SHOULD be deployment specific.  When meters are memory
   constrained and cannot adequately store the route tables necessary to
   support hop-by-hop routing, RPL non-storing mode SHOULD be preferred.
   On the other hand, when nodes are capable of storing such routing
   tables, the use of storing mode may lead to reduced overhead and
   route repair latency.  However, in high-density environments, storing
   routes can be challenging because some nodes may have to maintain
   routing information for a large number of descendents.  When the
   routing table size becomes challenging, it is RECOMMENDED that nodes
   perform route aggregation, similarly to the approach taken by other
   routing protocols, although the required set of mechanism may differ.
9.1.3.  DAO Policy
   Two-way communication is a requirement in AMI systems.  As a result,
   nodes SHOULD send DAO messages to establish downward paths from the
   root to themselves.
9.1.4.  Path Metrics
   Smart metering deployments utilize link technologies that may exhibit
   significant packet loss and thus require routing metrics that take
   packet loss into account.  To characterize a path over such link
   technologies, AMI deployments can use the Expected Transmission Count
   (ETX) metric as defined in [RFC6551].
   For water and gas meter networks that do not rely on powered
   infrastructure, simpler metrics that require less energy to compute
   would be more appropriate.  In particular, a combination of hop count
   and link quality can satisfy this requirement.  As minimizing energy
   consumption is critical in these types of networks, available node
   energy should also be used in conjunction with these two metrics.



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   The usage of additional metrics specifically designed for such
   networks may be defined in companion RFCs, e.g., [RFC6551].
9.1.5.  Objective Function
   RPL relies on an Objective Function for selecting parents and
   computing path costs and rank.  This objective function is decoupled
   from the core RPL mechanisms and also from the metrics in use in the
   network.  Two objective functions for RPL have been defined at the
   time of this writing, OF0 and MRHOF, both of which define the
   selection of a preferred parent and backup parents, and are suitable
   for AMI deployments.  Neither of the currently defined objective
   functions supports multiple metrics that might be required in
   heterogeneous networks (e.g., networks composed of devices with
   different energy constraints) or combination of metrics that might be
   required for water- and gas-only networks.  Additional objective
   functions specifically designed for such networks may be defined in
   companion RFCs.
9.1.6.  DODAG Repair
   To effectively handle time-varying link characteristics and
   availability, AMI deployments SHOULD utilize the local repair
   mechanisms in RPL.  Local repair is triggered by broken link
   detection and in storing mode by loop detection as well.  The first
   local repair mechanism consists of a node detaching from a DODAG and
   then re-attaching to the same or to a different DODAG at a later
   time.  While detached, a node advertises an infinite rank value so
   that its children can select a different parent.  This process is
   known as poisoning and is described in Section 8.2.2.5 of [RFC6550].
   While RPL provides an option to form a local DODAG, doing so in AMI
   deployments is of little benefit since AMI applications typically
   communicate through a LBR.  After the detached node has made
   sufficient effort to send notification to its children that it is
   detached, the node can rejoin the same DODAG with a higher rank
   value.  The configured duration of the poisoning mechanism needs to
   take into account the disconnection time applications running over
   the network can tolerate.  Note that when joining a different DODAG,
   the node need not perform poisoning.  The second local repair
   mechanism controls how much a node can increase its rank within a
   given DODAG Version (e.g., after detaching from the DODAG as a result
   of broken link or loop detection).  Setting the DAGMaxRankIncrease to
   a non-zero value enables this mechanism, and setting it to a value of
   less than infinity limits the cost of count-to-infinity scenarios
   when they occur, thus controlling the duration of disconnection
   applications may experience.
9.1.7.  Multicast


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   RPL defines multicast support for its storing mode of operation,
   where the DODAG structure built for unicast packet dissemination is
   used for multicast distribution as well.  In particular, multicast
   forwarding state creation is done through DAO messages with multicast
   target options sent along the DODAG towards the root.  Thereafter
   nodes with forwarding state for a particular group forward multicast
   packets along the DODAG by copying them to all children from which
   they have received a DAO with a multicast target option for the
   group.  Multicast support for RPL in non-storing mode will be defined
   in companion RFCs.
9.1.8.  Security
   AMI deployments operate in areas that do not provide any physical
   security.  For this reason, the link layer, transport layer and
   application layer technologies utilized within AMI networks typically
   provide security mechanisms to ensure authentication,
   confidentiality, integrity, and freshness.  As a result, AMI
   deployments may not need to implement RPL's security mechanisms and
   could rely on link layer and higher layer security features.
9.1.9.  P2P communications
   Distribution Automation and other emerging applications may require
   efficient P2P communications.  Basic P2P capabilities are already
   defined in the RPL  [RFC6550].  Additional mechanisms for efficient
   P2P communication are being developed in companion RFCs (see [I-D
   .draft-ietf-roll-p2p-rpl-17]).
9.2.  Description of Layer-two features
9.2.1.  IEEE 802.15.4e MAC sub-layer features
   TODO: describe IEEE 802.15.4e MAC features.
9.2.2.  IEEE P1901.2 MAC sub-layer features
   TODO: describe IEEE P1901.2 MAC features.
9.2.3.  Security features provided by MAC sub-layer.
9.2.3.1.  IEEE 802.15.4e
   TODO: Describe 802.15.4e MAC security features.
9.2.3.2.  IEEE P1901.2
   TODO: Describe P1901.2 MAC security features.
9.2.4.  MLE and other things
9.3.  6LowPAN Options
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   TODO: Describe 6LowPAN options applicable to RPL profile.
9.4.  Recommended Configuration Defaults and Ranges
9.4.1.  Trickle Parameters
   Trickle was designed to be density-aware and perform well in networks
   characterized by a wide range of node densities.  The combination of
   DIO packet suppression and adaptive timers for sending updates allows
   Trickle to perform well in both sparse and dense environments.  Node
   densities in AMI deployments can vary greatly, from nodes having only
   one or a handful of neighbors to nodes having several hundred
   neighbors.  In high density environments, relatively low values for
   Imin may cause a short period of congestion when an inconsistency is
   detected and DIO updates are sent by a large number of neighboring
   nodes nearly simultaneously.  While the Trickle timer will
   exponentially backoff, some time may elapse before the congestion
   subsides.  While some link layers employ contention mechanisms that
   attempt to avoid congestion, relying solely on the link layer to
   avoid congestion caused by a large number of DIO updates can result
   in increased communication latency for other control and data traffic
   in the network.  To mitigate this kind of short-term congestion, this
   document recommends a more conservative set of values for the Trickle
   parameters than those specified in [RFC6206].  In particular,
   DIOIntervalMin is set to a larger value to avoid periods of
   congestion in dense environments, and DIORedundancyConstant is
   parameterized accordingly as described below.  These values are
   appropriate for the timely distribution of DIO updates in both sparse
   and dense scenarios while avoiding the short-term congestion that
   might arise in dense scenarios.  Because the actual link capacity
   depends on the particular link technology used within an AMI
   deployment, the Trickle parameters are specified in terms of the
   link's maximum capacity for transmitting link-local multicast
   messages.  If the link can transmit m link-local multicast packets
   per second on average, the expected time it takes to transmit a link-
   local multicast packet is 1/m seconds.
   DIOIntervalMin: AMI deployments SHOULD set DIOIntervalMin such that
      the Trickle Imin is at least 50 times as long as it takes to
      transmit a link-local multicast packet.  This value is larger than
      that recommended in  [RFC6206] to avoid congestion in dense urban
      deployments as described above.  In energy-constrained deployments
      (e.g., in water and gas battery-based routing infrastructure),
      DIOIntervalMin MAY be set to a value resulting in a Trickle Imin
      of several (e.g.  2) hours.
   DIOIntervalDoublings: AMI deployments SHOULD set DIOIntervalDoublings
      such that the Trickle Imax is at least 2 hours or more.  For very
      energy constrained deployments (e.g., water and gas battery-based
      routing infrastructure), DIOIntervalDoublings MAY be set to a
      value resulting in a Trickle Imax of several (e.g., 2) days.

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   DIORedundancyConstant: AMI deployments SHOULD set
      DIORedundancyConstant to a value of at least 10.  This is due to
      the larger chosen value for DIOIntervalMin and the proportional
      relationship between Imin and k suggested in [RFC6206].  This
      increase is intended to compensate for the increased communication
      latency of DIO updates caused by the increase in the
      DIOIntervalMin value, though the proportional relationship between
      Imin and k suggested in  [RFC6206] is not preserved.  Instead,
      DIORedundancyConstant is set to a lower value in order to reduce
      the number of packet transmissions in dense environments.
9.4.2.  Other Parameters
   o  AMI deployments SHOULD set MinHopRankIncrease to 256, resulting in
      8 bits of resolution (e.g., for the ETX metric).
   o  To enable local repair, AMI deployments SHOULD set MaxRankIncrease
      to a value that allows a device to move a small number of hops
      away from the root.  With a MinHopRankIncrease of 256, a
      MaxRankIncrease of 1024 would allow a device to move up to 4 hops
      away.
10.  Manageability Considerations










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   Network manageability is a critical aspect of smart grid network
   deployment and operation.  With millions of devices participating in
   the smart grid network, many requiring real-time reachability,
   automatic configuration, and lightweight network health monitoring
   and management are crucial for achieving network availability and
   efficient operation.  RPL enables automatic and consistent
   configuration of RPL routers through parameters specified by the
   DODAG root and disseminated through DIO packets.  The use of Trickle
   for scheduling DIO transmissions ensures lightweight yet timely
   propagation of important network and parameter updates and allows
   network operators to choose the trade-off point they are comfortable
   with respect to overhead vs.  reliability and timeliness of network
   updates.  The metrics in use in the network along with the Trickle
   Timer parameters used to control the frequency and redundancy of
   network updates can be dynamically varied by the root during the
   lifetime of the network.  To that end, all DIO messages SHOULD
   contain a Metric Container option for disseminating the metrics and
   metric values used for DODAG setup.  In addition, DIO messages SHOULD
   contain a DODAG Configuration option for disseminating the Trickle
   Timer parameters throughout the network.  The possibility of
   dynamically updating the metrics in use in the network as well as the
   frequency of network updates allows deployment characteristics (e.g.,
   network density) to be discovered during network bring-up and to be
   used to tailor network parameters once the network is operational
   rather than having to rely on precise pre- configuration.  This also
   allows the network parameters and the overall routing protocol
   behavior to evolve during the lifetime of the network.  RPL specifies
   a number of variables and events that can be tracked for purposes of
   network fault and performance monitoring of RPL routers.  Depending
   on the memory and processing capabilities of each smart grid device,
   various subsets of these can be employed in the field.
11.  Security Considerations
   Smart grid networks are subject to stringent security requirements as
   they are considered a critical infrastructure component.  At the same
   time, since they are composed of large numbers of resource-
   constrained devices inter-connected with limited-throughput links,
   many available security mechanisms are not practical for use in such
   networks.  As a result, the choice of security mechanisms is highly
   dependent on the device and network capabilities characterizing a
   particular deployment.  In contrast to other types of LLNs, in smart
   grid networks centralized administrative control and access to a
   permanent secure infrastructure is available.  As a result link-
   layer, transport-layer and/or application-layer security mechanisms
   are typically in place and using RPL's secure mode is not necessary.
11.1.  Security Considerations during initial deployment
11.2.  Security Considerations during incremental deployment
12.  Other Related Protocols
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13.  IANA Considerations
   This memo includes no request to IANA.
14.  Acknowledgements
   The authors would like to acknowledge the review, feedback, and
   comments of Jari Arkko, Dominique Barthel, Cedric Chauvenet, Yuichi
   Igarashi, Philip Levis, Jeorjeta Jetcheva, Nicolas Dejean, and JP
   Vasseur.
15.  References
   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
   [RFC5548]  Dohler, M., Watteyne, T., Winter, T. and D. Barthel,
              "Routing Requirements for Urban Low-Power and Lossy
              Networks", RFC 5548, May 2009.
   [RFC6206]  Levis, P., Clausen, T., Hui, J., Gnawali, O. and J. Ko,
              "The Trickle Algorithm", RFC 6206, March 2011.
   [RFC6550]  Winter, T., Thubert, P., Brandt, A., Hui, J., Kelsey, R.,
              Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., Vasseur, JP. and R.
              Alexander, "RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and
              Lossy Networks", RFC 6550, March 2012.
   [RFC6551]  Vasseur, JP., Kim, M., Pister, K., Dejean, N. and D.
              Barthel, "Routing Metrics Used for Path Calculation in
              Low-Power and Lossy Networks", RFC 6551, March 2012.
   [RFC5867]  Martocci, J., De Mil, P., Riou, N. and W. Vermeylen,
              "Building Automation Routing Requirements in Low-Power and
              Lossy Networks", RFC 5867, June 2010.
   [RFC5826]  Brandt, A., Buron, J. and G. Porcu, "Home Automation
              Routing Requirements in Low-Power and Lossy Networks", RFC
              5826, April 2010.
   [RFC5673]  Pister, K., Thubert, P., Dwars, S. and T. Phinney,
              "Industrial Routing Requirements in Low-Power and Lossy
              Networks", RFC 5673, October 2009.
Authors' Addresses
   Daniel Popa
   Itron, Inc
   52, rue Camille Desmoulins
   Issy les Moulineaux, 92130
   FR

   Email: daniel.popa@itron.com
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   Matthew Gillmore
   Itron, Inc
   2111 N Molter Rd.
   Liberty Lake, WA, 99019
   USA

   Email: matthew.gillmore@itron.com
   Laurent Toutain
   Telecom Bretagne
   2 rue de la Chataigneraie
   Cesson Sevigne, 35510
   FR

   Email: laurent.toutain@telecom-bretagne.eu
   Jonathan Hui
   Cisco
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA, 95134
   USA

   Email: johui@cisco.com
   Ruben Salazar
   Landys+Gyr
   30000 Mill Creek Ave # 100
   Alpharetta, GA, 30022
   USA

   Email: ruben.salazar@landisgyr.com
   Kazuya Monden
   Hitachi, Ltd., Yokohama Research Laboratory
   292, Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi
   Kanagawa-ken  , 244-0817
   Japan

   Email: kazuya.monden.vw@hitachi.com



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