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Niagara Building Automation Summit Illustrates Diversity

Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas May 2-4, 2010

“What an idea. What a mad, crazy, wonderful idea.” Alice in Wonderland

More than 900 automation professionals attending the 2010 Niagara Summit were full of energy and ideas. It’s hard to believe that this was the 4^th Niagara Summit already, which is held every two years. I have personally attended every one. Attendance has increased significantly each year and the striking thing about the Niagara Summits is the high level of energy, large number of knowledgeable automation professionals, and sense of community where people openly share ideas. Niagara Summit is also an opportunity for users and systems integrators to “show and crow” about their application accomplishments.

Niagara Summit Exhibit Floor Featured TRIDIUM NASCAR & 38 Exhibitors

How Does Tridium Measure Up?

In my archives, I have a white paper Tridium published in 2003 titled, “The Niagara Framework: Measuring Up to Open.” In the white paper Tridium offered a definition of “open” as follows:

In the world of computer and software technology “open” is a word with different meanings to different people. Throughout the technology marketplace there are many different measures of open.

The final determination of whether any technology or product is open varies, determined in large part by factors specific to the application. This paper will provide a clear overview of the key elements of “openness” as they relate to building automation…

Key Elements of an Open System

There are many facets of openness: device connectivity, support for accepted standard protocols, end user access to products for initial purchase and system expansion, third party development of complementary enterprise applications, public interfaces (or “APIs”) to allow third party access to data, and compatibility with standard databases. These are the most common aspects to evaluate when considering openness.

On balance, Tridium has achieved an open framework platform that measures up to this definition. The field controllers of virtually all BAS systems can be used with Niagara. Some vendors still legally hold the rights to the Tridium Niagara protocol drivers for their proprietary protocols, so they can maintain sole source for these interfaces. With the wide adoption of open protocols in retrofit applications, this is becoming less of an issue over time.

Tridium has shipped approximately 200,000 instances of Niagara and has 49 OEM partners that include major industry suppliers like Johnson Controls, Siemens, Carrier, Schneider, McQuay, and Distech Controls. Close to 13,000 BAS professionals are Tridium certified. This year independent training partners have trained and certified more people than Tridium itself.

Marc Petock, Vice President Worldwide Marketing opened the Niagara Summit noting Niagara is approaching 200,000 installed instances of software.

Where is Tridium going?

Tridium is expanding capabilities to handle larger systems with more functions, and at the same time pushing down to embed control and data acquisition with Sedona. Tridium views Sedona as a pervasive technology for any applications including home automation, building automation, smart cities, demand response, medical, services, and life safety.

IBM Tridium Partnership

Tridium announced their partnership with IBM to be part of the IBM Smart Planet initiative. Steve Fey, Tridium President, described how IBM frames this initiative around three ideas:

Instrument the world’s systems
Interconnect them
Make them intelligent

“IBM really understands our vision that the world is moving to an IP connected world.”

Steve Fey, Tridium President

The IBM Tivoli and Maximo products are a key part of the Smart Planet strategy. Tivoli is an IT Application for data management, resource management, and network security. Maximo asset management software is for managing, and tracking maintenance.

Steve Fey said about the partnership, “The first aspect of the partnership is to make it possible for those two packages from a technical standpoint to integrate seamlessly and very cost effectively with Niagara.” “The other aspect of the partnership is on the other side, the asset side which has to do with Sedona. IBM is endorsing Sedona as an asset framework technology.”

IBM is going to contribute secure communications technology to Sedona as part of the arrangement. Security is a critical part of connecting everything with IP and this will be an important enhancement to Sedona.

Sedona – Connecting the Edge

The Sedona architecture is designed to be the linkage for “edge” devices, connecting sensors and controls to IP utilizing 6LoWPAN. The IBM partnership fits well with Tridium’s goal to be industry's premier open source software framework for developing, connecting, and managing small, low level embedded devices. This relationship should also create opportunities for partners that are building Sedona devices such as Contemporary Controls, Pervasive Devices, Solidyne, and Infocon.

Devices built on Sedona can be automatically discovered by Niagara and integrate seamlessly. The architecture supports the capability for devices to be field reprogrammable using Tridium software. The user creates applications with Tridium development software that generates compact Sedona program objects to execute in Sedona devices.

Developments

Steve Fey described developments which will improve Tridium offerings.

Device Models

Tridium is working to simplify engineering by creating Device Models - objects representing devices such as power meters, thermostats, chillers, boilers, and VAV controllers. These objects will reside at the JACE and presumably later at Sedona nodes to simplify engineering. This is analogous to what has been done in industrial systems and will require standardized definitions of device models that become electronic data sheets.

Drivers

New protocol drivers under development include Z-Wave wireless for the home market and automated demand response (ADR) protocol for energy.

User Interface

Improvements to the user interface technology will include Flash, HTML 5, and Microsoft Silverlight.

Sedona

Sedona developments include support for more target processors (TI, Atmel; Microchip) and three new hardware platforms. The new platforms under development are a 4 input battery operated device, digital outputs powered device, and an RS-232/RS-485 serial device adapter.

Honeywell Commitment

Roger Fradin, President and CEO, Automation and Control Solutions at Honeywell, spoke at a general session and reaffirmed his confidence in the Tridium team. He also described Honeywell’s commitment to promote the Tridium framework by saying, “Work with specifiers to get Niagara specified, to make it easier for you to sell, to pull the technology through the market.”

Roger Fradin, President and CEO, Automation and Control Solutions Honeywell, says, “We have a real commitment to the maintenance of Tridium’s core independent business model.”

He also addressed Tridium’s independence by saying, “We have a real commitment to the maintenance of Tridium’s core independent business model.” “You can be assured of a level playing field in terms of technology access, in terms of economics.” “We know to earn your business every day we can’t just be equal to [other alternatives], we need to be better than your next alternative.”

Tridium solves Honeywell’s problem of supporting 7 core brands and a big installed base of incompatible systems. Fradin explained, “We have a commitment to a multibrand, multichannel business model.” “We go to market under the Honeywell brand, Vykon brand, TREND brand, Allerton brand , Novar brand , through integrator channels, and we have a direct channel - the Honeywell Building solutions channel. Each brand should have its own unique look and feel and be able to compete with other building control players as well as with themselves and let the best solution win at the end user.”

Fradin noted, “The whole Niagara community ends up as the winner.”

Thoughts & Comments

Sedona is an example of the application of technology that enables our minds to conceive of applications that in the past have not been contemplated. This is how the cycle of technology works; we get a new technology use it and then exploit it. This is like “playing” out a gold mine. Computer networks are an example, initially they had very narrow applications and then were exploited for a wide range of applications including, multi-media, building automation, industrial control, security, telephone, and video. Managed services, the smart grid and other applications will be discovered as we play with technologies and uncover possibilities.

There is a growing opinion that legacy protocols are going to be driven out by pure IP devices. Proprietary legacy protocols are basically dead. I am not sure IP will go all the way, but industry is getting close to this considering major protocols like BACnet, Modbus, and industrial protocols are all taking advantage of IP.

6LoWPAN is an enabler and the IPSO alliance is promoting this view. IBM and Tridium are members along with major companies such as CISCO, Bosch, Duke Energy, Intel, and SAP. The IPSO Alliance is a global non-profit organization seeking to establish the Internet Protocol as the network for the connection of Smart Objects. The Alliance describes the domain of Smart Objects as vast, including sensors for light, pressure, temperature, vibration, actuators, and other similar objects. Applications include smart cities, smart grid, home and building automation, industrial applications, asset tracking, and utility metering.

The ability to cost effectively monitor and control more real world points, coupled with better analytical software, is a major reason I believe attendees at the Niagara Summit were stimulated to create new ideas. Knowing Tridium for a number of years and having attended all the Niagara Summits, I look forward to the 2012 Summit.

Please share your thoughts, insights, experiences, and comments on this article.

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