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February 2012 |
Babel Buster Network Gateways: Big Features. Small Price. |
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Open Connection Communities |
Ken Sinclair, Publisher |
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Folks
often say they appreciate my view of the industry from 10,000 feet
which is interesting since I live at sea level. The privilege of being
the publisher/editor of AutomatedBuildings.com is that it requires that
I read and assemble many articles, interviews, news releases, and new
products for the large building automation industry every month. This
task allows me insight to make comments on trends and shifts in
direction in the industry based on the rapidly evolving information
published on our magazine/online resource monthly.
My overall takeaway from AHR Expo 2012 Chicago was the growing
importance of being part of several strong Open Connection Communities.
Who we are connected to and the value they bring to our products and
services defines who we are and likely who we are to become. Open
Connection Communities will shape building automation’s future. The
communities that we connect to must be open so every member can build
on the resource of that community. To put this into perspective the
Apple app connection community comes to mind; over half a million apps
with millions of people working on them. You can argue that Apple is an
open dictatorship but Apple has done more than any to define smart
phone and tablet expectations and standards
. In addition to defining standards they have clearly shown us what
these devices are capable of. Now Android must create even better
apps with their community, further raising the bar for those to
follow. The example of Blackberry and its failure to create an
open community platform has shown the significant of engaging your
users.
Why am I talking about smart phones, we are in the building automation
industry correct? Yes, but our industry is now becoming very
visible and is converging rapidly on evolving connection communities
that are re-shaping our lives and our businesses..
It has become crystal clear that as an industry we cannot afford to
develop custom solutions as we have in the past. We must be part of
viable connection communities and dovetail their amazing services and
connections into our products and services. We cannot compete with the
millions of man-hours being spent developing amazing services that are
everywhere and anywhere on all platforms. Anything that is less or
different than these interfaces is very susceptible to rejection by our
clients.
We need to let go of the ownership of our data and mesh with an open
information world. We need to interact with connection communities like
Google and Bing. We need not to own this data just to find the
most effective way to utilize it to grow our respective communities.
We have our standards plus the knowledge of our industry but we no
longer can grow rapidly enough without being an integral part of
several connection communities.
I was extremely pleased to see our connection communities on the AHR
Expo exhibit floor. The newest community who became very visible
this year was EnOcean providing a strong connection to the wireless
products communities. All their members have the ability to bring
solutions to market that interact with the community providing more
value than just the original product. The EnOcean Alliance, a
leading consortium of 250 companies working to standardize and
internationalize energy harvesting wireless technology for green
intelligent buildings, had the participation of almost 30 Alliance
member companies on the exhibition floor.
http://www.automatedbuildings.com/releases/jan12/120124103606enocean.html
This is a great example of a community working out their problems and
just getting on with it. Some of the other protocols have not been so
successful at creating a working community or working products.
Of course strong traditional communities like BACnet, Niagara, and
LonMark were showing the power of their connection communities and the
host of new products and applications they have built to share with our
industry.. The power and reach of these communities has grown greatly
over the last few years.
In our quest as an industry to be anywhere, any platform, anytime while
entering the new world of analytics has created middleware
connection communties that allow the power of what is already
available to be added to our real time dynamic data. Since our
data in real time arrives through a myriad of networks with different
time constraints, the concept of a stored data base has evolved as a
solution for all.
As the Apple
example has shown us sometimes the best way to grow rapidly is in a
quasi-dictatorship. Once the direction change is shown the true open
communities can follow and build on the original community's success
similar to what is now happening with the Android community.
Niagara frame work has created an amazing community over the last
several years with many products that all interact with their open
platform and provide connection to many other connection communities.
Once these connections are build they exist for the complete community
which is very powerful.
Of course truly powerful products have the ability to straddle many
communities and build on the power of all. We must clearly define which
communities we are to be part of or create our own.
The reality is you need to be part of many connection communities such as;
http://project-haystack.org Project Haystack is an open source initiative to develop naming conventions and taxonomies for building equipment and operational data. We define standardized data models for sites, equipment, and points related to energy, HVAC, lighting, and other environmental systems.
Here are some others:
I took a little time to walk the floor and look at the new heavy metal for our indstry and was pleased to hear the name of connections communtity such as BACnet, LonMark, Niagara and EnOcean being bantered about. Another community I heard a lot of mention of was the Wi-Fi community.
Lots of changes in the industry for sure.
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