Automated meter reading system

• US 6,088,659 A
• Filed: 05/21/1998
• Issued: 07/11/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Elster Electricity LLC (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ABB Power T&D Co Inc (ABB Limited)
• Inventors: Kelley, Raymond H., Lunney, Robert H., Martinez, Maureen, Carpenter, Richard Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Wachsman, Hal
• Application Number:
  US09/082,647
• Time in Patent Office: 782 Days
• Field of Search: 702/62, 702/61, 702/81-84, 702/122, 702/123, 702/179, 702/182, 702/183, 702/186, 702/187, 702/188, 702/FOR 170, 702/FOR 171, 702/FOR 155, 702/FOR 103 , 702/FOR 104, 702/FOR 106, 702/FOR 111, 702/FOR 112, 364/528.26, 364/528.3, 364/528.31, 364/130-133, 364/138, 364/191, 364/192, 395/200.31, 395/200.54, 395/837, 395/838, 395/200.53, 395/200.33, 395/200.58, 395/200.6, 395/682, 395/200.32, 707/10, 707/11, 707/103, 707/104, 707/2, 705/1, 705/7, 705/8, 705/401, 705/404, 705/405, 705/410, 705/412, 340/870.01, 340/870.02, 340/870.16, 340/870.03, 340/870.13, 340/870.18, 340/870.31, 340/657-664, 379/106.03, 379/102.04, 379/106.01, 379/FOR 129, 709/200-203, 709/219, 709/244, 709/300, 700/2, 700/3, 700/9, 700/86, 700/87, 700/286, 700/291, 700/295, 700/296
• US Class Current: 702/62
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 4/004 Remote reading of utility meters to a fixed location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 90/20 Smart grids as enabling technology in buildings sector smart grids supporting the management or operation of end-user stationary applications in general, or like technologies with no associated climate change mitigation effect Y04S20/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/30 Smart metering, e.g. specially adapted for remote reading

Abstract

An automated meter reading (AMR) server having an open, distributed architecture that collects, loads, and manages system-wide data collected from energy meters and routes the data automatically to upstream business systems. The AMR server includes a repository of metering data, and additionally provides timely access to information by including collection, storage, validation, estimation, editing, publishing and securing of meter consumption and interval data. The AMR server obtains data from meters equipped with modems via standard telephone lines or public RF networks. The data is converted from the format of the meter/communications infrastructure to a format usable by the AMR server and the repository. The data is converted from the AMR-compatible form to a format of a specific upstream business system prior to transmission. The data may also be validated in accordance with the upstream business system requirements. The AMR server provides for on-line users, interfacing with multiple dissimilar platforms and meter firmware, maintenance of system availability, data recovery, access to multiple legacy systems, and access by common set of Application Program Interfaces.

Claims

1. An automated meter reading server that collects telemetry data from remote customer locations and processes said telemetry data for use by end users and upstream business systems, said automated meter reading server comprising:

a data repository to store said telemetry data;

at least one external interface to communicate with systems external of said automated meter reading server; and

a multi-layered distributed software architecture comprising;

application and infrastructure subsystems, said application and infrastructure subsystems comprising services, distributed throughout said automated meter reading server, that cooperate to accomplish predefined business functionalities;

middleware software, said middleware software being provided to facilitate scalability, transaction processing, and mapping of objects to said data repository; and

application frameworks, said application frameworks facilitating access to said data repository and the creation of processes compliant with said middleware software,

wherein said business functionalities determine processes by which said automated meter reading server receives data from downstream collection points, processes said telemetry data, and manipulates said data repository.

2. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said middleware software provides communication facilities to communicate information between clients of said automated meter reading server and said automated meter reading server, data transportation and data conversion facilities, and a mechanism by which the clients can locate servers within distributed architecture.

3. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said middleware provides for load balancing and scheduling by assigning said services to application servers based on a priority, and wherein each of said application servers consists of multiple processing agents and is multi-threaded.

4. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 3, wherein a plurality of application servers are executed simultaneously on multiple physical devices that comprise said automated meter reading server to spread client loads across said multiple physical devices.

5. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said automated meter reading server accesses said data repository via transactions and transaction processing.

6. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 5, wherein said transactions are isolated from one another to prevent other transactions from accessing data that a particular transaction is using until the particular transaction is complete, and wherein a recoverable queuing system is provided to queue transactional work to be completed at a later time.

7. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 5, wherein said data repository comprises an object-oriented design residing on a relational database implementation, and wherein object-to-relational mapping is performed by mapping from a tabular relational database to object structures.

8. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said data repository comprises a relational database having a temporal framework, wherein said temporal framework comprises timestamp ranges for each table within said relational database to provide different historical views of data stored therein.

9. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 8, wherein said temporal framework comprises a bitemporal conceptual data model, said bitemporal conceptual data model providing for two independent, orthogonal time periods to be associated with each row in a table, said two independent, orthogonal time periods comprising a valid time and transaction time, wherein said valid time and said transaction time each comprise a start time and end time, and wherein valid time is a time range during which a fact is true, and said transaction period is the time range during which said fact is recorded in said data repository.

10. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said data repository is designed to represent a high-level object model and wherein each high-level object is mapped to said data repository.

11. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, said application frameworks comprising a data access object framework and a distributed services framework.

12. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 11, wherein said distributed services framework comprises:

classes to provide a factory for any object or atomic datatype that has been defined within a class mapping directory;

a pointer to an instance of a specific type of object and a wrapper around said instance;

a blackboard to share information used in an existing activity plan;

a mechanism that provides a runtime invocation of functions based on a representation of a function name; and

a mechanism that provides encapsulation of a string of tag-value pairs and manipulation and extraction of information from said string.

13. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 11, wherein said distributed services framework hides the detailed implementation of said data repository from an application by providing distributed object proxies, and wherein said data repository is not directly accessed by external applications.

14. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 11, wherein said data access object framework provides proxies, manager servers, and back-end implementation servers to isolate relationships of said telemetry data in said data repository in order to provide access to said telemetry data.

15. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said infrastructure subsystem supports said application subsystem, said infrastructure subsystem comprising generic and reusable components having no knowledge of an automated meter reading server application domain, and said application subsystem comprising services running on a plurality of application servers that have detailed and specific knowledge about said automated meter reading server application domain.

16. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, said infrastructure subsystem comprising an activity management subsystem, wherein said business functionalities to be performed by said automated meter reading server are extracted into activity plans to isolate said business functionalities from application code comprising said software architecture in order to provide for diverse business functionalities without requiring substantial modification of said application code,

wherein said activity plans control the flow of work within said automated meter reading server, and wherein said activity management subsystem invokes and manages said activity plans.

17. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 16, said activity plans comprising at least one task, wherein a task is a discrete unit of work in said activity plan that is controlled by a single server in the automated meter reading server.

18. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 17, wherein said at least one task is responsible for failover processes, said failover processes being operations to be performed in the case of failure, said failure being determined based on conditions returned after executing an activity.

19. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 16, wherein said activity management subsystem instantiates said activity plan, negotiates responses and events for activity plans, and monitors the current status of all activity plans in progress.

20. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 16, said activity management subsystem comprising:

an activity plan builder which is an interface to construct an ordered collection of tasks contained within an activity plan and said activity plan builder initializes a blackboard to share information;

a dispatcher panel which instantiates activity plans and routes responses from servers within said automated meter reading server to an appropriate activity plan and sends queued messages to other servers within said automated meter reading server;

a dispatcher brain which runs said activity plan and handles responses from other servers sent to active said activity plan;

a dispatcher storage manager which controls access to persistent activity plans; and

an activity plan monitor which displays the state of any activity plan by name, or by selection.

21. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a scheduler subsystem, wherein said scheduler subsystem manages building and execution of schedules within said automated meter reading server, wherein said schedules are used to control the time-based execution of work within said automated meter reading server.

22. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 21, said scheduler subsystem comprising a schedule manager server and a scheduler, wherein said schedule manager server handles the creation, updating, and retrieval of schedules to and from said data repository, and said scheduler retrieves schedules through said schedule manager server.

23. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 21, wherein said scheduler subsystem determines a job execution duration and adjusts execution durations in accordance with heuristic-tuning parameters.

24. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 21, wherein said scheduler subsystem comprises a delivery schedule that notifies a supplier when to deliver data to the automated meter reading server, a billing schedule which determines the timing of data delivery from the automated meter reading server to a utility for billing, and a collection schedule which determines when to collect data and what type of data to collect.

25. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, said infrastructure subsystem comprising an alarm subsystem that receives requests for timed messages, and wherein when an alarm occurs, a callback is made to a subscriber of said alarm.

26. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a concern management subsystem that provides for distributed event management and a mapping of concerns for entities within said automated meter reading server, wherein said entities comprise a vendor, which is something that can provide notification of an event, or a requester, which is something that has an interest or concern in an item that can be provided by a vendor.

27. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a mapping subsystem which provides services for customization of file formats for exporting data from, and importing data to, said automated meter reading server, said customization of file formats being performed in accordance with maps.

28. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 27, wherein said mapping subsystem comprises a canonical mapper, said canonical mapper comprising an input map, a canon, and an output map to map information from an input file format to an output file format.

29. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 28, wherein said input and output maps are used to map information across sub-domains, wherein there are at least two sub-domains under a same root domain.

30. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 28, further comprising a mapping interface server which sends requests to said canonical mapper,

wherein said input and output maps are derivation trees, and

wherein said canonical mapper builds a scanner/parser for an input sub-domain, traverses said input map, parses the data from the input file into a canonical list, and maps from the canonical list to an output sub-domain by traversing said output map and re-interprets the corresponding element from the canonical list to conform to an output data format to create the specified output file.

31. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a log/trace subsystem that generates logs for auditing purposes that are adapted to support certain standard types of queries, and wherein said log/tracing subsystem is provided to determine a cause of problems that occur in said automated meter reading server and can be activated at runtime or by any server within said automated meter reading server.

32. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, wherein said application subsystem further comprises a supplier subsystem, said supplier subsystem adapted to communicate with a supplier in accordance with a format of said supplier, and wherein said supplier subsystem encapsulates differences in communication formats so that clients of said at least one external interface need not know what type of supplier with which they are communicating.

33. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 32, wherein outgoing requests to suppliers are accomplished through activity plans that control the flow of work within said automated meter reading server, and wherein services triggered from a supplier will begin activity plans to accomplish tasks.

34. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 32, said supplier subsystem comprising supplier manager, supplier outgoing, supplier incoming, and dock control servers, wherein said supplier subsystem routes meter service requests from automated meter reading services to an automated meter reading service responsible for interfacing with an external system, and manages information delivery and collection schedules, and manages communication from the automated meter reading server to the external system.

35. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 34, wherein said supplier subsystem directs incoming service requests from communication servers, connected to said automated meter reading server, to activities within the automated meter reading server responsible for servicing the request.

36. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, wherein said application subsystem comprises a data access object subsystem.

37. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 36, wherein said data access object subsystem contains data access objects to manipulate data within said data repository, wherein said data access objects are representations of tables within said data repository.

38. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 37, wherein said data access objects have a hierarchical relationship with one another, such that one type of object or collection contains or is contained by another type of object or collection.

39. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 36, wherein said data access subsystem utilizes proxy objects to interact with said application frameworks, wherein said proxy objects are provided by said application frameworks to encapsulate relationships and behavior of data.

40. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 39, wherein said proxy objects are mapped to objects in said data access subsystem, wherein, said objects in said data access subsystem are object representations of tables within said data repository.

41. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 40, wherein said proxy objects are distributed and cached in a memory in said meter reader server.

42. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 36, wherein said data access object subsystem comprises a plurality of manager servers, wherein said manager servers provide services related to meters, services related to rates, services related to meter groups, loading of received and mapped data into said data repository, retrieving reading samples from the automated meter reading data repository, determining the abilities of a particular component instance, and provide lists of reference data.

43. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, wherein said application subsystem comprises an export subsystem.

44. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 43, wherein said export subsystem exports data to external application systems by mapping and formatting data from said external application systems.

45. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 43, wherein said export subsystem comprises an export manager and a validation, editing, and estimation manager.

46. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 45, wherein said validation, editing, estimation manager performs validation, editing, and estimation of output data to be exported such that said output data has characteristics desired by a requester of said output data.

47. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 46, wherein said validation, editing, and estimation manager performs said validation in accordance with a plurality of regulatory agencies to produce settlement quality data.

48. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 45, wherein said validation, editing, and estimation manager utilizes activity plans to control the flow of work within said automated meter reading server.

49. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 15, wherein said application subsystem comprises a utility interface, said utility interface communicating with external systems and accepting requests from the external systems.

50. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 49, further comprising a graphical user interface which interacts with said application subsystem and provides at least one of access to said automated meter reading server to manually invoke all business system interfaces online, search specific meter/account/rate/event information, provide access to an activity management system monitor, and provide an interface to schedules.

51. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 50, wherein said graphical user interface uses standard application system application programming interfaces provided by said utility interface to initiate requests.

52. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said at least one external interface includes one of a standards-based application programming interface and a file based interface.

53. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 52, wherein said at least one external interface communicates to a canonical mapper, said canonical mapper building a map which specifies the required translation to perform a conversion from an input format to an output format.

54. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 52, wherein said standards-based application programming interface requests are utilized to interact with said automated meter reading server, said standards-based application programming interface requests comprising synchronous and asynchronous requests,

wherein said synchronous requests return request outputs directly to a requester when the request is made, and wherein said asynchronous requests return the status of a request start-up from said application subsystem to the requester and, at a later time, provide an asynchronous notification to the requester with the request outputs.

55. The automated meter reading system as recited in claim 1, wherein said automated meter reading server is adapted to administer a plurality of dissimilar legacy systems and dissimilar customer-to-customer requirements, business functionality logic, and regulatory requirements.

56. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, further comprising at least one communications server to communicate said telemetry data over at least one communications network, and wherein said automated meter reading server is adapted to receive said telemetry data via dissimilar communications networks.

57. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 56, wherein a plurality of dissimilar meters communicate said telemetry data via said dissimilar communications networks.

58. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 56, wherein said at least one communications network comprises at least one of a wireless and public switched telephone network, and

wherein said at least one communications server establishes communications sessions to read said telemetry data from meters, interprets meter protocols, converts data from a meter protocol to a protocol of said communication server, and sends said telemetry data to said at least one communications server.

59. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 58, wherein said at least one communication server supports at least one of CDMA, telephone &

international DAA, PSTN, PCS, Ardis, x.25 modem, RAM, ReFlex, Amps, CDPD, and TDMA environments.

60. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 56, wherein said automated meter reading server is adapted to support a fail-over capability at all levels in the event of a failure, and wherein an individual process fails, said automated meter reading server shifts failed processes to another process, and wherein if a communications server fails, automatic routing to other communication servers is established.

61. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said automated meter reading server notifies end users of outage alerts, tamper notification, in-home display of electric information, meter programming, remote monitoring of power quality, and customer service diagnostics.

62. The automated meter reading server as recited in claim 1, wherein said automated meter reading server measures power usage, said power usage being measured in one of kVARh, kVAh, kWh, and Time of Use.

63. A distributed server that receives and processes information for use by end users, said distributed server comprising:

a data repository to store said information;

at least one external interface to communicate with systems external of said distributed server; and

a multi-layered distributed software architecture comprising;

application and infrastructure subsystems, said application and infrastructure subsystems comprising services, distributed throughout said distributed server, that cooperate to perform operations within said server;

middleware software, said middleware software being provided to facilitate scalability, transaction processing, and mapping of objects to said data repository; and

application frameworks, said application frameworks facilitating access to said data repository and the creation of processes compliant with said middleware software,

wherein said distributed server receives data from downstream collection points, processes said data, and manipulates said data repository to accomplish said operations.

64. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, wherein said middleware provides for load balancing and scheduling by assigning each service to an application server based on a priority, and wherein each of said application servers consists of multiple processing agents and is multi-threaded.

65. The distributed server as recited in claim 64, wherein a plurality of application servers are executed simultaneously on multiple physical devices that comprise said distributed server to spread client loads across said multiple physical devices.

66. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, wherein said distributed server accesses said data repository via transactions and transaction processing.

67. The distributed server as recited in claim 66, wherein said transactions are isolated from one another to prevent other transactions from accessing data that a particular transaction is using until the particular transaction is complete, and wherein a recoverable queuing system is provided to queue transactional work to be completed at a later time.

68. The distributed server as recited in claim 66, wherein said data repository comprises an object-oriented design residing on a relational database implementation, and wherein object-to-relational mapping is performed by mapping from a tabular relational database to object structures.

69. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, wherein said data repository is designed to represent a high-level object model and wherein each high-level object is mapped to the data repository.

70. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, said application frameworks comprising a data access object framework and a distributed services framework.

71. The distributed server as recited in claim 70, wherein said distributed services framework hides the detailed implementation of said data repository from an application by providing distributed object proxies, and wherein said data repository is not directly accessed by external applications.

72. The distributed server as recited in claim 70, wherein said data access object framework provides proxies, manager servers, and back-end implementation servers to isolate relationships of said information in said data repository in order to provide access to said information.

73. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, wherein said infrastructure subsystem supports said application subsystem, said infrastructure subsystem comprising generic and reusable components having no knowledge of a distributed server application domain, and wherein said application subsystem comprising services running on applications servers that have detailed and specific knowledge about said distributed domain.

74. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, said infrastructure subsystem comprising an activity management subsystem, wherein said operations are extracted into activity plans to be performed by said distributed server to isolate said operations from application code that comprises said software architecture to provide for dissimilar operations to be performed without requiring substantial modification of said application code,

wherein said activity plans control the control the flow of work within said distributed server, wherein said activity management subsystem invokes and manages said activity plans.

75. The distributed server as recited in claim 74, said activity plans comprising at least one task, and wherein a task is a discrete unit of work in said activity plan that is controlled by a single server in the distributed server.

76. The distributed server as recited in claim 75, wherein said at least one task is responsible for failover processes, said failover processes being operations to be performed in the case of failure, said failure being determined based on conditions returned after executing an activity.

77. The distributed server as recited in claim 74, wherein said activity management subsystem instantiates said activity plan, negotiates responses and events for activity plans, and monitors the current status of all activity plans in progress.

78. The distributed server as recited in claim 74, wherein said application subsystem comprises an export subsystem that exports data to external application systems by mapping and formatting data from said application subsystem.

79. The distributed server as recited in claim 78, wherein said export subsystem comprises an export manager and a validation, editing, and estimation manager,

wherein said validation, editing, and estimation manager performs validation, editing, and estimation of data to be exported such that said output data has characteristics desired by a requestor of said data to be exported.

80. The distributed server as recited in claim 79, wherein said validation, editing, and estimation manager utilizes activity plans to control the flow of work within said distributed server.

81. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a scheduler subsystem, wherein said scheduler subsystem manages building and execution of schedules within said distributed server, wherein said schedules are used to control the time-based execution of work within said distributed server.

82. The distributed server as recited in claim 81, wherein said scheduler subsystem determines a job execution duration and adjusts execution durations in accordance with heuristic-tuning parameters.

83. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, said infrastructure subsystem comprising an alarm subsystem that receives requests for timed messages, and wherein when an alarm occurs, a callback is made to a subscriber of said alarm.

84. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a concern management subsystem provides distributed event management and a mapping of concerns for entities within said distributed server, wherein said entities comprise vendors, which are something that can provide notification of an event, or a requester, which is something that has an interest or concern in an item that can be provided by a vendor.

85. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a mapping subsystem which provides services for customization of file formats for exporting data from, and importing data to, said distributed server, said customization being performed in accordance with maps.

86. The distributed server as recited in claim 85, wherein said mapping subsystem comprises a canonical mapper, said canonical mapper comprising an input map, a canon, and an output map to map information from an input file format to an output file format.

87. The distributed server as recited in claim 86, wherein said input and output maps are used to map information across sub-domains, wherein there are at least two sub-domains under a same root domain.

88. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, said infrastructure subsystem comprising a log/trace subsystem generates logs for auditing purposes that are adapted to support certain standard types of queries, and wherein log/tracing system is provided to determine a cause of problems that occur in said distributed server and can be activated at runtime or by any server within said distributed server.

89. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, wherein said application subsystem further comprises a supplier subsystem, said supplier subsystem adapted to communicate with a supplier in accordance with a format of said supplier, and wherein said supplier subsystem encapsulates differences in formats so that clients of the interface need not know what type of supplier with which they are interacting.

90. The distributed server as recited in claim 89, wherein outgoing requests to suppliers are accomplished through activity plans that control the flow of work within said distributed server, and wherein services triggered from a supplier will begin activity plans to accomplish tasks.

91. The distributed server as recited in claim 89, wherein said supplier subsystem directs incoming service requests from communication servers, connected to said distributed server, to activities within the distributed server responsible for servicing the request.

92. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, wherein said application subsystem comprises a data access object subsystem.

93. The distributed server as recited in claim 92, wherein said data access object subsystem contains data access objects to manipulate data within said data repository, wherein said data access objects are representations of tables within said data repository.

94. The distributed server as recited in claim 93, wherein said data access objects have a hierarchical relationship with one another, such that one type of object or collection contains or is contained by another type of object or collection.

95. The distributed server as recited in claim 92, wherein said data access subsystem utilizes proxy objects to interact with said application frameworks, wherein said proxy objects are provided by said application frameworks to encapsulate relationships and behavior of data.

96. The distributed server as recited in claim 95, wherein said proxy objects are mapped to objects in said data access subsystem, wherein, said objects in said data access subsystem are object representations of tables within said data repository.

97. The distributed server as recited in claim 96, wherein said proxy objects are distributed and cached in a memory in said distributed server.

98. The distributed server as recited in claim 73, wherein said application subsystem comprises a utility interface, said utility interface communicating with external systems and accepting requests from the external systems.

99. The distributed server as recited in claim 98, further comprising a graphical user interface which interacts with said utility subsystem and provides at least one of access to said distributed server to manually invoke all business system interfaces online, search specific meter/account/rate/event information, provide access to said activity management subsystem, and provide an interface to schedules.

100. The distributed server as recited in claim 99, wherein said graphical user interface uses standard application system application programming interfaces provided by said utility interface to initiate requests.

101. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, wherein said at least one external interface includes one of a standards-based application programming interface and a file based interface.

102. The distributed server as recited in claim 101, wherein said at least one external interface communicates to a canonical mapper, said canonical mapper building a map which specifies the required translation to perform a conversion from an input format to an output format.

103. The distributed server as recited in claim 101, wherein said standards-based application programming interface requests are utilized to interact with said distributed server, said standards-based application programming interface requests comprising synchronous and asynchronous requests,

wherein said synchronous requests return request outputs directly to a requestor when the request is made, and wherein said asynchronous requests return the status of the request start-up from said application subsystem to the requester and, at a later time, provide an asynchronous notification to the requestor with the request outputs.

104. The distributed server as recited in claim 63, further comprising at least one communications server to communicate said information over at least one communications network, and wherein said distributed server is adapted to receive said information via dissimilar communications networks.

105. A server residing within a multi-layered distributed software architecture, said server comprising:

a data repository to store data received by said server;

at least one external interface to communicate with systems external of said server;

a services subsystem comprising distributed services, said distributed services running on application servers within said distributed architecture;

middleware software, said middleware software being provided to facilitate scalability, transaction processing, and mapping of objects to said data repository; and

application frameworks, said application frameworks facilitating access to said data repository and the creation of processes compliant with said middleware software,

wherein server-based procedures are managed in accordance with predetermined activities.

106. The server as recited in claim 105, wherein said application servers are simultaneously executed on multiple physical devices to spread client loads across said multiple physical devices.

107. The server as recited in claim 105, wherein said server accesses said data repository via transactions and transaction processing.

108. The server as recited in claim 107, wherein said transactions are isolated from one another to prevent other transactions from accessing data that a particular transaction is using until the particular transaction is complete, and wherein a recoverable queuing system is provided to queue transactional work to be completed at a later time.

109. The server as recited in claim 105, said application frameworks comprising a data access object framework and a distributed services framework.

110. The server as recited in claim 109, wherein said distributed services framework hides the detailed implementation of said data repository from an application by providing distributed object proxies, and wherein said data repository is not directly accessed by external applications.

111. The server as recited in claim 109, wherein said data access object framework provides proxies, manager servers, and back-end implementation servers to isolate the relationships of said data within said data repository in order to provide access to said data.

112. The server as recited in claim 105, said services subsystem comprising an activity management subsystem, wherein predetermined activities are ordered within activity plans to be performed by said server, said activity plans isolating said predetermined activities from application code that comprises said services subsystem to provide for dissimilar activities to be performed without requiring substantial modification of said application code,

wherein said activity plans control the flow of work within said server, wherein said activity management subsystem invokes and manages said activity plans.

113. The server as recited in claim 112, wherein said activity plans comprise at least one task, and wherein a task is a discrete unit of work in said activity plan that is controlled by a single server.

114. The server as recited in claim 105, said services subsystem comprising a mapping subsystem which provides services for customization of file formats for exporting data from and importing data to said server.

115. The server as recited in claim 114, wherein said mapping subsystem comprises a canonical mapper, said canonical mapper comprising an input map, a canon, and an output map to map information from an input file format to an output file format.

116. The server as recited in claim 115, wherein said input and output maps are used to map information across sub-domains, wherein there are at least two sub-domains under a same root domain.

117. The server as recited in claim 105, wherein said services subsystem further comprises a supplier subsystem, said supplier subsystem adapted to communicate with a supplier in accordance with a format of said supplier, and wherein said supplier subsystem encapsulates differences in formats so that clients of the interface need not know what type of supplier with which they are interacting.

118. The server as recited in claim 117, wherein outgoing requests to suppliers are accomplished through activity plans that control the flow of work within said server, and wherein services triggered from a supplier will begin activity plans to accomplish tasks.

119. The server as recited in claim 105, wherein said services subsystem comprises an export subsystem that exports data to external application systems by mapping and formatting data from said services subsystems.

120. The server as recited in claim 119, wherein said export subsystem comprises a validation, editing, and estimation manager, wherein said validation, editing, and estimation manager performs validation, editing, and estimation of data to be exported has characteristics desired by a requestor of said data to be exported.

121. The server as recited in claim 120, wherein said validation, editing, and estimation manager utilizes activity plans to control the flow of work within said server.

122. The server as recited in claim 105, wherein said server comprises an automated meter reading server.