Real-time And INtegrated STream-Oriented Remote Monitoring (RAINSTORM) Interface

The IAEA began using remote monitoring in 1997 as a means of optimizing inspection efforts while simultaneously improving the timeliness of safeguards information. Use of remote monitoring has gradually expanded over the last 15+ years. As a result, each safeguards instrument now has a unique remote-data-collection interface and a unique security implementation. Because the IAEA anticipates further expansion of its remote monitoring instruments and applications over the next several years, it is important to standardize the remote monitoring interface and security implementation in order to manage the growing complexity of a large set of remotely monitored instruments. In this paper we present the Real-time And INtegrated STream-Oriented Remote Monitoring (RAINSTORM) interface, a standardized remote monitoring interface. RAINSTORM will be made available to safeguards instrument developers in the form of a requirements document and as ANSI C source code “owned” by the IAEA. Integrating RAINSTORM directly into safeguards instruments will allow the IAEA to directly maintain and upgrade the remote monitoring interface without the need for time-consuming, and often expensive, upgrade or ‘bug fix’ requests. At the core of RAINSTORM is a simple Hyptertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. The HTTP server provides a simple, uniform interface for downloading files from an instrument. HTTP is an extremely simple yet ubiquitous protocol (used many billions of times per day) with a feature set that is well-suited to remote monitoring. RAINSTORM also provides encryption and signing services built on a proven open-source security library.