Communication services for secure building automation networks

Up to now, building automation systems were considered as virtually closed environments. If at all, they had to provide some well dedicated dial-in connections for remote management. With the introduction of interconnections to foreign networks (e.g., Web gateways to the Internet) and wireless technologies, the assumption of physical isolation is not longer valid. In parallel, building automation systems of the next generation shall also be home for tight integrated services with seamless interworking nodes of formerly separated systems. When security-critical integration is considered, this promises synergies, but significantly tightens requirements on the protocol stack. This paper summarizes the demands to be met by nodes participating in such an environment and presents necessary secure services that are part of the protocol architecture.