Smart meter data processing: a showcase for simple and efficient textual processing

The increase in the production and collection of data from devices is an ongoing trend due to the roll-out of more cyber-physical applications. Smart meters, because of their importance in power grids, are a class of such devices whose produced data requires meticulous processing. In this paper, we use Unicage, a data processing system based on classic Unix shell scripting, that delivers excellent performance in a simple package. We use this methodology to process smart meter data in XML format, subjected to the constraints posed by a real use case. We develop a solution that parses, validates and performs a simple aggregation of 27 million XML files in less than 10 minutes. We present a study of the solution as well as the benefits of its adoption.