1. Error Handling for IEC 61968-9
Scott Neumann
September 29, 2009

2. Introduction
The purpose of this presentation is to describe the issue of error handling and the reporting of errors
InterOp efforts recognized this issue, but decided to ‘keep it simple’ for the first pass
This is intended as input to the second edition of IEC … or more importantly and/or (proposed)

3. Errors Errors could be any of the following:
Connection error
Timeout on a reply
Fault, where a message can not be deciphered
Authentication or authorization error
Failure of XML to validate against an XSD
XML elements fail application validation rules
Failure of a transaction (that otherwise passed application-level validation)
Of the above, items 6 and 7 may require more granular error reporting

4. Error Responses Errors can be reported in a response message
Errors could indicate:
Simple success fail code for the entire message
List of human readable errors
List of machine readable errors at an element level
A response message could provide all of the above
Important to note that issues arise when a request includes a complex transaction or multiple transactions

5. Machine Readable Errors
Some situations will need a structure that can be used to convey errors down to an element level
Structure would identify:
Identity of XML element in error (e.g. using Xpath expression to identify specific element)
Severity (e.g. Fatal, Warning, Informational)
Error code
Detailed text description of error
This structure could be added to the message ‘reply’ package

6. Reply Package
Current:
Possible:

7. More Information UISOL web site: http://uisol.com
EPRI Technical Report: ESB Implementation Profile Using IEC 61968