Features

Configuration Management with FOXMAN-UN

• FOXMAN-UN automatically discovers and uploads network element data, including position,

type, and cross-connection tables.

• FOX615 networks can be configured offline and later downloaded during installation.

Graphical Network Management

• FOXMAN-UN provides graphical and hierarchical representation of the network.

• No limits on hierarchical levels, and custom customer-specific background bitmaps can be selected.

Alarming and Supervision

• FOXMAN-UN continuously supervises alarms in network elements

(e.g., loss of signal, synchronization, frame).

• It detects state changes and supports five alarm severity levels.

• Operators can modify individual alarm severity.

Security Management

• It provides configurable access control features for individual user accounts and network partitioning.

Integrated Communication Equipment

• FOXMAN-UN integrates various Hitachi Energy communication equipment, such as NSD570.

FOX615. FOX515.E TL600. EDS500. AFS670. as well as 3rd party devices.

• It serves as an overall management system, supervising diverse network element types.

• These elements include different technologies like optical fibers and power line carrier communication.

Performance Management

• Performance management oversees individual data channels’ quality within a network.

• Alarms are triggered if predefined threshold levels are exceeded.

• Facilitates network operators in maintaining high service quality for subscribers.

• Constant supervision ensures optimal performance.

• Performance data in network elements adheres to the ITU-T G.826 standard.

Synchronization view

• Provides an overview of paths and dependencies (synchronization map).

• Collects current synchronization timing source information from FOX515/512

or FOX615/612 network elements.

• Displays this data graphically for easy visualization

Overview

A reliable and flexible communication network lies at the heart of

successful electrical grid operations.

With FOXMAN-UN, operators of critical wired communication networks gain a comprehensive

and intuitive solution. You can operate your mission-critical networks with real-time network

visibility, simplified service provisioning functionality, and enhanced root-cause analysis support.

Deep, application-centric insights

FOXMAN-UN provides enhanced application-centric views, built on decades of experience in

critical communication infrastructure for power utilities, giving you unparalleled insights into

the performance of essential services.

Multigeneration, multitechnology support

You can also optimize opex with its multigeneration, multitechnology support.

FOXMAN-UN allows you to seamlessly transition from legacy devices and technologies to

modern, state-of-the-art solutions. FOXMAN-UN ensures that service configuration and

network supervision remain as straightforward as in homogeneous solutions,

making the operation of heterogeneous setups manageable and efficient.

Full visibility into your communication infrastructure

The modern graphical interface of FOXMAN-UN represents the network at various levels,

from a high-level overview of the infrastructure and status to detailed service views.

It supports full fleet management functionality for communication equipment,

including inventory management, software upgrades, and status supervision.

FOXMAN-UN simplifies network operation and provides in-depth monitoring of

service and infrastructure performance.

Easy configuration

Application-specific views, like the Synchronization Map, facilitate the configuration and

maintenance of critical network applications. Context-sensitive menus and an intuitive

operating concept ensure an outstanding user experience.

FOXMAN-UN, the FOX615 platform’s network management system, provides superior

application-centric views and continuous supervision of critical services and parameters,

like teleprotection. Easily migrate from legacy devices such as FOX515 to FOX615 and

from SDH technology to MPLS-TP networks with its multigeneration and multitechnology support.

Key highlights

• Full visibility of operational telecommunication infrastructure

• Deep, application-centric data for visibility of critical application performance parameters

• Multigeneration and multitechnology migration capabilities

• Easy configuration of all service types for increased operational efficiency

Full visibility into your communication infrastructure

The modern graphical interface of FOXMAN-UN represents the network at various levels,

from a high-level overview of the infrastructure and status to detailed service views.

It supports full fleet management functionality for communication equipment,

including inventory management, software upgrades, and status supervision.

FOXMAN-UN simplifies network operation and provides in-depth monitoring of

service and infrastructure performance.

Easy configuration

Application-specific views, like the Synchronization Map, facilitate the configuration and

maintenance of critical network applications. Context-sensitive menus and an intuitive

operating concept ensure an outstanding user experience.

Utility environment:

These days most offices grind to a halt in the face of a failed internet connection, but no industry

compares to electrical transmission in being dependent on robust, resilient, and predictable

communications. Only suppliers with an intimate knowledge of the industry can supply,

and maintain, equipment capable of meeting that unique set of demands.

In addition to extremes of temperature, utility communications equipment is also exposed to magnetic

and electrical fields, which are particularly severe during short-circuit events.

In order to maintain the high levels of availability required, especially in emergency situations,

utility communications equipment must offer a robust and reliable design that has proven

capabilities for providing accurate functionality under extreme conditions.

In dusty and remote environments, where regular maintenance cannot be guaranteed,

fan-less designs are preferable.

Cybersecurity: Layered communication architectures ensure improved network security.

Packet-based networks use publicly documented protocols, and utilities are potential targets,

so a comprehensive (and co-ordinated) security policy is essential across the entire network.

Depending on the application requirements, different measures need to be taken, starting from

denial of service protection, protection against data modification using authentication,

up to encryption of confidential data, and centralized user account management.

This ensures a ‘defense in depth’ approach and is supported by the FOX615 platform.

Additionally, the static approach of MPLS-TP, with much fewer protocols being potential targets

for attacks, and the natively integrated SDH technology reduce potential attack surfaces.

Longevity: Investment cycles in utilities are much longer than those in the public telecom sector.

Protection and control equipment in electrical substations, which is ultimately connected to

utility communication equipment, is particularly long-lived. The ultimate goal of commissioning

an all-Ethernet/IP network is still far away, particularly for Hitachi Energy, which link hundreds

or even thousands of established substations.

A basic requirement of such a system would be longevity, with guaranteed performance as per

established technologies. Unlike the full network refurbishments often seen in public

telecommunications networks, utility networks evolve slowly, increasing in size and slowly

migrating to new technologies in a step-by-step approach. This evolution means that high

interoperability between existing and new installations as well as parallel operation of both is a must.

Utility environment:

These days most offices grind to a halt in the face of a failed internet connection, but no industry

compares to electrical transmission in being dependent on robust, resilient, and predictable

communications. Only suppliers with an intimate knowledge of the industry can supply,

and maintain, equipment capable of meeting that unique set of demands.

In addition to extremes of temperature, utility communications equipment is also exposed to magnetic

and electrical fields, which are particularly severe during short-circuit events.

In order to maintain the high levels of availability required, especially in emergency situations,

utility communications equipment must offer a robust and reliable design that has proven

capabilities for providing accurate functionality under extreme conditions.

In dusty and remote environments, where regular maintenance cannot be guaranteed,

fan-less designs are preferable.

Overview

Ready for the challenges of tomorrow

FOX615 integrates teleprotection interfaces for distance as well as for differential

protection simultaneously within state-of-the-art SDH networks and MPLS-TP networks;

ensuring an easy and flexible way to migrate technology in a utility network.

With its latest IEC61850 interface the FOX615 also acts as a substation IED and

enables GOOSE based protection applications of digital substations.

Built on Hitachi Energy’s huge domain expertise, the utility-grade design of FOX615

is deployed in thousands of installations across the globe with guaranteed performance

including those with electromagnetically polluted environments and across a broad range

of temperatures.

Teleprotection: Safeguarding the electrical grid

Critical to grid operations is the protection of power lines, through teleprotection.

Teleprotection systems were developed alongside the electrical grids themselves,

and the operational communication networks used are mainly driven by those applications.

In 1940. the average telephone user was just getting to grips with the rotary-dial telephone,

while Hitachi Energy was deploying power-line communications: utilizing the electrical

transmission infrastructure to carry teleprotection data and avoiding the need for a separate Pilot Line.

Public telecom networks have evolved at an amazing speed, this has been primarily driven

by new applications (e.g. smartphones, YouTube, email) which results in a growing demand

for increased bandwidth. Subsequently this has resulted in network solutions with a higher

capacity for data transmission with a lower focus upon the quality of service.

Teleprotection systems, in contrast, have always operated under the pressure of protecting

critical infrastructure. Reliability and quality of service is paramount, resilience is required,

while new technologies and techniques must prove themselves robust enough to match,

or exceed, the existing equipment before they can safely be used in the electrical network.

WAN modernization: An outstanding multiservice platform for real-time utility communication

Hitachi Energy’s FOX615 is a hybrid solution supporting traditional TDM (PDH / SDH) and

Multi-Protocol Label Switching – Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) – the latest standard designed

to address the new applications using packet-switched technology natively. The majority of

existing communication networks of power utilities are based on Time Division Multiplexing,

TDM, which allocates dedicated circuits to specific communications and thus guaranteeing

the required communication performance parameters such as bandwidth, latency, and symmetry.

New standards today are based on packet-switched technologies (e.g. IEC 60870-5-104 or IEC 61850)

and therefore integrate natively into a packet-switched MPLS backbone network.

Well known features of SDH networks were left behind when MPLS was originally created for

dynamic public telecommunication networks and implemented as IP/MPLS. That’s why an

enhancement of the standard was required, leading to MPLS-TP bringing back those missing

features from SDH to the MPLS world such as bidirectional and static channel routing or end

to end channel supervision using Operational Administration Maintenance (OAM).

FOX615 provides native MPLS-TP and SDH functionality as part of the hybrid approach implemented.

Hitachi Energy’s FOX615 is an outstanding multi-service multiplexer which enables

the extension of existing communication infrastructure, as well as the smooth

migration to future technology.

Key highlights

• Easy and flexible way to migrate technology in a utility network

• With its latest IEC61850 interface the FOX615 also acts as a substation IED

• Enables GOOSE based protection applications of digital substations

FOX615 provides native MPLS-TP and SDH functionality as part of the hybrid approach implemented.

The combination of state of the art SDH technology and future MPLS-TP technology provides an easy

and flexible way to migrate technology in a utility network. All FOX615’s which are deployed in the

field today can easily be upgraded to MPLS-TP. It also allows the parallel implementation of SDH

and MPLS-TP in one node, separating traffic according to their performance requirements.

One further option is to just implement a pure MPLS-TP node. FOX615 today offers much more

to a utility than any other multiservice platform for real-time utility communications.