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It is hard to consider any smart building truly clever unless it can drive cost and efficiency savings for its owner, but the scale of capital expenditure required often blurs the return on investment argument.
With so many in-building systems now generating, sharing and ingesting data the underlying IP network is perhaps the single most important element in supporting any convergence initiative.
And it also offers significant potential for the consolidation of multiple systems and communications networks which have historically been built, run and managed on separate architecture by different administration teams.
Jakob Duch is vice president of International Sales at Allied Telesis, a global network infrastructure vendor which has already migrated some of its Japanese customers onto converged fixed and wireless networks which consolidates previously separate systems into a single entity.
Single infrastructure
“We are already seeing hospitals where the network is fully converged,” he said during a panel session discussing security and efficiency in smart buildings at this week’s IFSEC International conference in London.
“Health and safety systems, WiFi for patients, CCTV and billing systems are all combined on a single infrastructure and this is going to extend to building management systems sooner or later.”
“There is more lighting over IP [networks] now with Power over Ethernet (PoE) and PoE+ getting bigger and more powerful, and more systems are going to sit on that IP network whether we like it or not,” added James Hill who works for the IT services division UK engineering and construction company NG Bailey.
SwitchBlade x908 from Allied Tenesis
Ian Davis, technical manager for enterprise business at network solution provider Commscope believes that fire systems too will eventually find their way onto converged networks, despite strict UK regulations around door access control and resistant cabling.
“Fireline guidelines have very specific requirements, but the regulations state anything can be integrated – pump warning systems, door release mechanisms for example – as long as there is demand for it,” he said.
APIs
Many security system vendors still make products which use their own proprietary communication protocols which are not compatible with those of rival suppliers however, a situation which threatens to handicap progress.
“There have to be open application programming interfaces (APIs) open to everyone which can exchange data between different platforms. That has to be the starting point,” said Davis.
“We are behind in that in the access control world because until recently many manufacturers relied on closed protocols,” admitted Hill. “There are lots of closed protocol type operations here at the IFSEC International show today, but will they be here in the next few years?”
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Network Infrastructure is Driving Smart Building System Convergence“We are already seeing hospitals where the network is fully converged,” said Jakob Duch, vice president of international sales at Allied Telesis, during a panel session at IFSEC International.
Martin Courtney
IFSEC Insider | Security and Fire News and Resources
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MichealLe1
July 8, 2016 5:24 am
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