Accessing meter/sensor values via BACnet

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

My company develops an interactive visualization/analysis dashboard that integrates with sensors and meters in a building to get the data it needs. We are working with a new client who use Ecostruxture Enterprise Server as their BMS, and would like to get  real-time data out of this. The folk responsible for installing/maintaining their BMS have advised us that BACnet/IP is the best way to go. We have access to a server that's on the same network as the BMS and can communicate with it via BACnet/IP, and I'm now trying to develop some code to run on that server to collect the data.

The problem I'm having now is adding our device to Ecostruxture, which I'm told needs to happen before it can request data over BACnet. It responds to WhoIs packets, and also ReadProperty packets for the "SystemStatus", "Description", "Location" and "ModelName" device properties. However, when I scan for BACnet devices in Ecostruxture ours appears for a few seconds and then disappears again. I can see from the network that the server requests some additional properties but haven't dug into what these are / how to respond yet.

Before I carry on with trying to respond to these packets, I would like some clarification about whether this approach is likely to work at all, and how much extra effort it's likely to require. Is there a minimum set of BACnet functionality required on devices in order for Ecostruxture to accept them as devices and allow them to query data? Any advice that anyone can give would be very much appreciated!

Regards,

Bob Merrison-Hort

City Science Corporation

[CraigEl]

Yes it can work, like most standards you need to comply to the rules of the road.