The connected building [Internet connected building control networks]

Commercial buildings and public venues are often wired up with 20 or more separate networks, responsible for such diverse functions as heating, lighting, ventilation, air conditioning, energy monitoring, fire alarms, and CCTV. Such building control systems have done a decent job for decades. But they are based on proprietary solutions, each with their own local wiring, software and control panels. This article examines the use of a single Internet protocol (IP) based network to carry voice, data, video and wireless information for building control. It details the use of the extensible markup language (XML) that has been developed for data transmission with Internet technologies such as TCP/IP and HTTP. It also describes building control using Web services, often described as middleware or the software 'glue' that sticks systems together. It concludes by presenting several practical installations using this technology.