About Tamarack Consulting

Tamarack is a privately held corporation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Building on our staff's many years of experience in industrial controls in the manufacturing sector, Tamarack supplies consulting services to vendors implementing standards based communications. Our primary customers are vendors in the electric utility industry.

For sales, distribution and support, please contact us.

Our previous experience with the OSI standard ISO 9506: Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS) during the original MAP efforts sponsored by General Motors led to our involvement with the EPRI sponsored Utility Communications Architecture (UCA 2.0). Tamarack has been active in the UCA efforts since 1991. Tamarack has provided technical coordination services to EPRI in support of the MMS Forum, and has played the role of editor for the emerging Inter-control Center Communications Protocol (ICCP), which was later standardized as IEC 870-6-503, TASE.2. TASE.2 specifies how to perform communications between control center Energy Management Systems (EMS), and between EMS and SCADA master stations using the UCA recommended MMS.

Tamarack has since been involved in developing the IEC 61850 standard, which replaces UCA 2.0 for worldwide use. We have continued to develop our core Server, Client and communications software to maintain compliance with the IEC 61850 standard.

The Tamarack IEC 61850 products are unique, in that they were designed from the start for small device implementations. Tamarack has applied formal computer science techniques, along with our experience in embedded systems and communication, to develop the smallest and easiest to use implementations on the market. The interfaces provided are simple, and do not require detailed knowledge of the underlying protocols.

Tamarack works with all of the major suppliers of IEC 61850 software products to assure interoperability. One of the major benefits of standards-based communications is the overall reduction in integration costs, both for the end user and for the OEM equipment suppliers.