Exploring a tiered architecture for NASPInet

One of the missions of the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) is to create a robust, widely available and secure synchronized data measurement infrastructure, called the NASPI network or NASPInet. Leveraging the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU), a GPS clock synchronized measurement device capable of measuring the current and voltage phasors in the power grid, NASPI will improve reliability of the power grid with NASPInet providing data delivery. While a conceptual architecture of NASPInet and its functional requirements have been developed, in this work we address the challenge of designing a deployable architecture that can realize NASPInet on a continental scale. To do so, we explore a tiered architecture for NASPInet and analyze its impact on the Quality of Service (QoS), cyber security and network management services. Furthermore, we discuss the distributed computing opportunities afforded by our architecture.