EMAIL INTERVIEW Jim Hogenson & Ken Sinclair

Jim Hogenson, President
Control Solutions, Inc. & Home of LogMyData.com

Jim Hogenson is founder and President of Control Solutions, Inc., of Minnesota. Jim has been designing real time control systems, hardware and software, since 1978. He spent many years in the contract design and consulting business developing dozens of products for various companies. Jim currently focuses his energy on developing and customizing the Control Solutions product line with emphasis on open systems and technologies.

AHR Expo Booth #3640

What's New in Control Solutions?

We will also be introducing our new BACnet IP Web Server,
as well as our web based remote monitoring service and cellular remote monitoring products.

Sinclair:  What’s new in the Control Solutions booth at AHR Expo 2009?

Hogenson:  One of our more interesting new products is our Babel Buster IP/XM gateway. This product connects BACnet® IP to Modbus® TCP, Modbus® RTU, or SNMP. We can go from any of these protocols to any of these protocols via BACnet objects served by the IP/XM.

Sinclair:  BACnet IP to SNMP seems like an odd combination. What do you do with that?

Hogenson:  Energy saving initiatives along with the desire for tighter integration of the entire facility has brought building automation requirements head to head with industrial requirements for a variety of equipment. Power backup systems are one big area that has been traditionally “industrial”, and frequently equipped with Modbus for communications. Power monitoring for data centers has been traditionally SNMP based. When we introduce the initiative to integrate these power functions with HVAC for total facility management, we quickly find gaps in communication throughout the system.

Sinclair:  When would HVAC need to talk SNMP?

Hogenson:  Sometimes the data center managers are the primary information customer. They have extensive monitoring capability, but it is mostly dedicated to watching servers, routers, and power backup systems. Now they would like to integrate HVAC, but most HVAC equipment does not talk SNMP, the primarily protocol in data center monitoring. Thus we need a way to monitor BACnet and other devices from the SNMP network.

Sinclair:  Does the data center ever need to use BACnet?

Hogenson:  Sometimes a data center is present, but does not constitute the core of the business. In these cases, it is more common to find facility managers familiar with BACnet wanting to monitor power systems in the data center. But the power systems only talk SNMP. Now we need a way to put SNMP devices on the BACnet IP network. The SNMP client capability in our BACnet gateway gets this job done.

Sinclair:  Will you be showing any new products besides this gateway?

Hogenson:  Yes, we will also be introducing our new BACnet IP Web Server, as well as our web based remote monitoring service and cellular remote monitoring products. You will find us in booth 3640.

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