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Profiles

In the Common Information Model (CIM), Profiles are specialized extensions that tailor the standard CIM schema to meet domain-specific or organizational needs.

  • A specification for a data exchange in a particular business context.
    • Semantic content defined as a subset of a Canonical Data Model.
    • Interface media defined. E.g File, message, data server, etc.
      • Serialization / access mechanism defined as appropriate.
    • If appropriate, message exchange sequences defined.
  • Implementation investment is in profiles, not the Canonical Data Model.
  • Testing occurs at the profile level, not the Canonical Data Model.
  • Compliance is defined at the profile level, not the Canonical Data Model.

Subset of CIM Model

A profiling tool (e.g CIM EA, CIMTool) is used to select the desired content from canonical CIM.

CIM EA a free tool for CIM modeling and design. CIM EA is an add-in developed within the Sparx Systems flagship modeling platform, Enterprise Architect.

CIM EA extends Enterprise Architect to provide a single environment in which users can manage the IEC Common Information Model (CIM), CIM Profiles, and CIM-based artifacts such as RDF and XSD message generation

  • The tool produces a schema

  • The instance data to be exchanged has to conform with the schema

Profile Groups

A profile is derived to define the data exchanges required for an interface.

  • A CIM profile group is a logical grouping of CIM profiles.

  • Many profiles cover specific exchanges that are of relevance to multiple use cases.

  • The approach here is to keep profiles as specific as possible so that multiple profiles can be combined into single Profile Group for a particular exchange.

ENTSO-E Profiles

ENTSO-E common grid model exchange standard (CGMES) which relies on and extends the previous standard profiles as defined by the IEC TC57 WG13 in order to support the exchanges of the data necessary for regional or pan-European grid development studies, and for future processes related to network code.

IEC 61970-600-2:2021 defines the profiles included in the Common Grid Model Exchange Standard (CGMES) that are based on IEC 61970-450-series and IEC 61968-13 profiles.