The New World of MeteringWith their inscrutable wheels and dials, electricity, gas and water meters are the most recognizable “faces” of the utility industry. Today though, those meters are getting a face lift.

Actually, they are being completely reengineered as regulators and consumers alike pressure utility industry companies to change the way they monitor and report electric, gas and water consumption, for reasons including environmental and efficiency concerns.

The new monitoring systems will require integration with technology systems at the utility company and in the home, to enable better pricing models for the utility and better purchasing decisions for consumers. The meters will report their data automatically, delivering usage information to the utility via numerous communications channels.

Regardless of how these new “smart” meters work, all the new systems will create a tremendous amount of data – an almost overwhelming torrent, as millions of meters report their unique information at minute-by-minute intervals.

In fact, the data creation may become so profuse that the utility company’s IT department’s concerns about managing gigabytes and terabytes may soon be replaced by fears of dealing with petabytes, a quadrillion bytes, or 1,000 terabytes. Adding to the difficulty, utilities will need systems for separating automated meter data for various determinations within the utility, like billing and pricing.

Truly, as advanced metering takes its place among the must-have technologies in the utilities planning, the coming data deluge will be like standing below a dam that’s about to breach.

Enter Microsoft and ItronMicrosoft and its partner Itron, a leading provider of metering, data collection and utility software solutions, have been working together to create technology systems that utilities will need to organize and make the most of the coming data flows.

The resulting Itron Enterprise Edition (IEE) Meter Data Management (MDM) application is a highly scalable program that enables utilities to manage metering and other utility-operated data in one place, regardless of source Itron solutions are upstream utility applications that support an unlimited

amount of Advanced Metering Infrastructure and Automated Meter Reading systems. They also support commercial and industrial (C&I) meters and improve operational efficiencies, customer service, distribution reliability and more.

IEE MDM is a scalable, enterprise-wide, open-architecture data management solution that manages interval, register and event data in a central repository for residential and C&I customers looking to interface large amounts of data with multiple systems.

Microsoft’s RoleBy working with Microsoft, Itron has the resources, experience and knowledge of an industry leader to ensure its solution delivers business results.

In fact, in 2008, Itron successfully tested IEE MDM, compiling data from 4.5 million meters, every half-hour, or the equivalent of hourly data for nine

million meters. The test imported over 200 million intervals of data and served to ensure that MDM meets the needs of large utility companies and can scale to the increasingly sophisticated advanced metering infrastructure solutions that are being introduced or piloted in programs across the industry. The tests used Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008.

Julie Hance, Itron’s Vice President of Software Services, summed it this way, “In all cases Microsoft and Itron were able to verify that Itron’s MDM solution does, in fact, meet and exceed all the required perfor-mance and scalability demands for data import necessary to satisfy large-scale installations upward of 9 million residential AMI hourly interval meters. Working together, Itron and Microsoft were able to establish that its architecture will flexibly scale to meet the future, growing needs of customers.”

The IEE MDM application requires a number of other Microsoft technologies to run and is optimized for and supports the Microsoft Windows environment (a full

list of Microsoft technologies is provided on the back page).

Microsoft’s long-standing commitment to support the power and utilities industry is demonstrated by the fact that Microsoft solutions are present in most, if not all, utilities around the world – supplying desktop and office software, collaboration and communications solutions, as well as servers, databases, integration and management software – in some capacity.

Microsoft and Itron: Enabling Utility Management of Meter Data

Itron’s MDM solution uses the Microsoft platform to ensure that it is interoperable with a wide variety of systems to help people work across traditional data boundaries and gain streamlined access to information.

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Itron Enterprise Edition MDM solution is built upon a number of Microsoft platforms, including Microsoft BizTalk Server and SQL Server.

Key Microsoft Technologies in IEE MDMUtility industry solutions from Microsoft and Itron are based on the world’s most cost-effective, functionally rich IT platform that helps create a more secure computing experience. The following Microsoft technologies are required to run and directly integrated with IEE MDM:

• ASP.NET• Internet Information Services (IIS)• .NET Framework• SQL Server• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)• Windows Server• Windows XP/Vista• Windows Vista for IEE (6.0 Rich Client Userface)

About ItronItron Inc. is a Microsoft certified partner and a leading technology provider to the global energy and water industries. Itron Inc. consists of Itron in North America and Actaris outside of North America. Our company is the world’s leading provider of metering, data collection and utility software solutions, with nearly 8,000 utilities worldwide relying on our technology to optimize the delivery and use of energy and water. Our products include electricity, gas and water meters, data collection and communication systems, including automated meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI); meter data management and related software applications; as well as project management, installation, and consulting services. To know more, start here: www.itron.com.

About Microsoft’s Worldwide Utilities GroupMicrosoft’s Worldwide Utilities Group offers platform and partner solutions that empower utilities to thrive in today’s market-driven environ-ment by optimizing their business operations in customer care, generation, trading and risk management, transmission and distribution, regulatory compliance and enterprise services. For more information contact your local Microsoft Sales Representative or visit www.microsoft.com/utilities.

Benefits of the IEE MDM Solution• Reduce cost/time to gather and reconcile meter data from multiple collection systems• Provide higher quality data from operating a single enterprise-wide data repository• Improve reliability, security and consistency of meter data for billing and analytics• Reduce number of errors associated with increased data collection and intervals• Interface to numerous analytical software applications• Improved operational efficiency by way of secure data that’s audited and easily accessible to the enterprise• Insulate the utility’s business systems from the details of metering/meter reading in a multi-technology environment

Key Features of the IEE MDM Solution• Scalable, open-architectureThis enterprise-wide data management solution manages interval, register and event data in a central repository for residential and C&I customers looking to interface large amounts of data with multiple systems.

• Secure, centralized data environment The environment reduces the likelihood of errors in business processes that use meter data. IEE MDM interfaces easily to existing billing systems and analysis tools such as complex billing, customer care, demand response, distribution optimization and design and revenue assurance. This allows companies to deploy a cost-effective data management system without affecting existing billing processes.

• Enables advanced metering infrastructureIEE MDM allows seamless integration to OpenWay® by Itron, an open- standards approach that gives utilities the freedom to adopt best-in-class elements throughout their network. OpenWay provides full two-way communication to each meter, multiple channel interval data collection, integrated mass market demand response, a built-in communication pathway to the home, and extensive smart grid features.

Itron & Microsoft in Smart Metering

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© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, BizTalk, SharePoint, Vista, Visual Studio, Windows, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

www.microsoft.com/utilities