The scope of this paper is to address the evolution of distribution grid architectures following the widespread introduction of renewable energy sources. The increasing connection of distributed resources has a strong impact on the topology and the control functionality of the current distribution grids requiring the development of new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions with various degrees of adaptation of the monitoring, communication and control technologies. The costs of ICT based solutions need however to be taken into account, hence it is desirable to work with existing communication networks. The objective of the European FP7 project SmartC2Net in this regard is to enable robust smart grid control utilizing heterogeneous third party communication infrastructures.