I am assuming that most of these comments in this froum come from people in the US. The situation appears similar in Euro, with pressure from corporate management to connect enterprise systems to the SCADA that controls the network.

On a slightly unrelated note, whilst I agree with the comments in the post concerning good network practise, this won?t help matters if you don?t have a network. A place called Telehouse in London terminates most UK IP traffic and relays most US ? Europe traffic. Part of Telehouse lost power a Sunday ago (human cock-up). Due to the move from circuit to packet networks (IP rules OK) power companies have very little option but to migrate protection and control signals to all-IP networks. Due to network topologies (and the need to use Telcos to carry at least some of the signalling) some of these signals will be transited through places such as Telehouse. It does not take much imagination to realise that loss of part of a power SCADA could trigger instability and before you know it, cascade tripping. The devil is in the detail.

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