Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Computer network monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-24
2002-03-26
Maung, Zarni (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Computer network monitoring
C709S218000, C709S241000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06363422
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention generally relates to facilities management systems and more particularly to an integrated and networked system for facilities management systems which is remotely operable through Internet protocols.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Buildings, campuses, multi-location environments, and other types of facilities commonly use monitoring and control systems to manage the operational disciplines of environmental systems, electrical and power distribution systems, security systems, and health/safety and fire protection systems.
Pertinent to an understanding of facilities management systems, is the understanding that there are many commercially available products which are able to provide sensing and control functions necessary for effective facilities management. These products generally range from very expensive, elaborate systems, to rather simple systems having relatively low intelligence. Originally, facilities management systems depended on linking remote pieces of facilities equipment to a centrally located command and control console by dedicated serial cabling or some other non-network connection. Defining a facilities management architecture in terms of dedicated cabling suffers from a number of logical flaws and disadvantages.
In particular, geographically diverse or remote facilities, even those located on a common campus, could not be managed effectively because of the difficulty attendant to making robust connections between and among facilities equipment and between the facilities equipment and a client/server system over geographical distances in excess of 30 meters. Moreover, managing even the facilities equipment disposed throughout a single facility from a remote central management console is highly disadvantageous in that such remote management contemplates a dial-up connection made between the central console and a supported piece of equipment in order to effect the management and control function. Such dial-up connections are slow, have limited functionality and exhibit poor control response because of the inherent time-lapse attendant between an event requiring remediation and the appropriate response.
In addition to the difficulties attendant to non-network interconnects, facilities equipment manufactured by different vendors could not be linked together in a single communication structure because each brand of equipment typically employed a different transmission protocol and/or proprietary communication connection from other brands. Thus, an HVAC installation by Johnson Controls Company would be unable to be coupled to the same communication structure as an HVAC installation from Liebert Corporation.
Notwithstanding the difficulties inherent in attempting to link together multi-vendor equipment into a facility, significant difficulties are encountered when attempting to link together equipment designed to accommodate different disciplines, even though manufactured by the same vendor. Linking different types of equipment together is often impossible due to the inherently different nature of the tasks undertaken by devices designed for the environmental, electrical, security and fire protection disciplines. Such multi-task linking often precluded an effective facilities communication structure even when multivendor and multi-location issues were avoided.
Several attempts have been made in the prior art to improve communications with any facilities management system by devising various means for linking together different brands of equipment in a multi-vendor architecture. The primary focus of these prior art attempts was to create a common data transmission protocol and communication interconnect adaptable for use within a single facility. It was thus thought that many vendors would adopt such a protocol by allowing them to maintain their proprietary control code structure, but allow the common protocol to transmit all code information to a central point for management.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,728, owned by Echelon Systems Corp., describes a local area network (LAN) capable of communicating information through the existing power wiring of a single facility, given that the facility falls within certain size parameters and limitations. Data communication is effected through a standard protocol to transmit data to a central console, and, to the extent that the standard protocol was hosted by all of the brands of equipment comprising the facility, more than one type of equipment from more than one manufacturer could be managed through the central console. In practice, however, the common transmission protocol was provided without defining a common central management interface. Few manufacturers would acquiesce to the control rules for their equipment being devised and defined in accordance with another manufacturer's desires. In addition, though able to provide a rudimentary degree of multi-task and multi-vendor management, the '728 system was not able to manage geographically diverse or remote facilities, even those located on a common campus, because of the requirement that information be communicated through an existing power line network.
A further prior art attempt at multi-task and multi-vendor facilities management was described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,826, owned by Acex, which provided an RS-485 serial communication modem which converts data for transmission over a power line network. Because a number of existing facilities products use RS-485 communication protocols, certain manufacturers were able to keep their existing code and protocol and capture the ability to transmit data in a LAN environment within a single facility. Although this prior art approach offers a rudimentary multi-task and multi-vendor capability with regard to equipment hosting the RS-485 communications protocol, it is disadvantageous in that while some facilities devices use RS-485 communications, a majority do not. Indeed, the most common form of communication for such equipment remains RS-232 or contact closure. Moreover, power line network communications are limited to use within a single facility and, thus, do not address the multi-site or multi-location issue.
Various other systems and networks have been devised in the prior art in an attempt to devise a facilities management system that was able to simultaneously deal with multi-task, multi-vendor, multi-location and remote management issues posed by modern infrastructure facilities. None of these prior art systems have exhibited the degree of flexibility necessary to offer monitoring and control of all multi-task disciplines of facilities management including environmental, electrical, security, power and fire protection systems. While also providing multi-vendor, multi-site and remote management capabilities, all in a standards-based network. Accordingly there is a need for a facilities management system which is able to provide a means of communicating with any type or brand facilities equipment which supports some degree of input/output (I/O) based communication by establishing a direct communication channel to that device through a variety of standard communication protocols. Such a system should provide a means for monitoring and controlling any supported equipment by storing and communicating all of the operating rules necessary to manage that particular piece of facilities equipment and also to provide a means for bi-directionally communicating information between a particular piece of facilities equipment and a central server, regardless of the geographic location of the device or the server over a standard voice or data communications network. Such a system should further provide a means to configure, reconfigure and manage a client object in direction communication with supported devices, which is linked to the server through the standard voice or data communications network as well as a means to manage a server and all of its linked clients from a remote connection through the standard voice or data communications network.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These and other objects and a
Cheong Leslie
Hunter Robert R.
Vogt David A.
Cardone Jason D.
Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP
Maung Zarni
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