"DNP3 Protocol Engineering"
"DNP3 Protocol Engineering" offers a comprehensive and technically rigorous exploration of the Distributed Network Protocol (DNP3), a cornerstone of critical infrastructure communications. The book opens by situating DNP3 within its historical and industrial context, addressing its motivations, design philosophy, and evolution alongside standards like IEEE 1815. Readers are guided through a detailed comparison with other prominent industrial protocols, such as IEC 60870-5, IEC 61850, and Modbus, building a nuanced foundation for understanding DNP3's unique architecture and pivotal role in sectors including electric utility automation, water management, and transportation.
Progressing from foundational principles to advanced engineering, the text delves deeply into the physical, data link, transport, and application layers, presenting the mechanics of DNP3's data exchange—from framing, error detection, and time synchronization to the object model, event reporting, and extensibility. Special attention is given to time synchronization and event management, elucidating the protocol's mechanisms for high-accuracy timestamping, priority-based event queuing, and robust Sequence of Events (SOE) processing. The book then tackles the paramount subject of cybersecurity, demystifying threat models, secure authentication (as per IEEE 1815-2012), encryption practices, and credential management, while prescribing industry-best practices for hardening and incident response.
Rounding out this authoritative reference, the book addresses practical aspects of designing, implementing, and testing DNP3 protocol stacks across diverse platforms and network architectures. It covers real-world challenges such as scalability, redundancy, system integration, and interoperability with other protocols, as well as the latest trends in cloud, edge, IoT, and autonomous infrastructure. With in-depth coverage of verification, conformance testing, and automation, "DNP3 Protocol Engineering" is an indispensable guide for engineers, protocol architects, security professionals, and technical managers building the next generation of resilient, secure, and scalable industrial communication systems.