AutomatedBuildings.com Review - Takeaways from ConnectivityWeek 2011

After each year's event I try to list my takeaways of the things that significantly impacted, impressed me and are likely to change my future.

ConnectivityWeek was a good event with many new grid and cloud players. There was a loss of many of the traditional Building Automation vendors, integrators and bit suppliers for our industry which resulted in reduced attendence from last year. All this reflects the transition of our industry as it converges with the smart grid and the powerful cloud services business models.

A shift of focus from enabling connectivity technolgies to the new business models they drive created a different feel for the event.

I was impressed with the CTO of the USA keynote presentation. The fact that there is a CTO at that level was the best news. Much has been done to release data and allow new found methedologies to have a greater effect on the procedural way government functions. Be sure to read Aneesh's pdf linked below.

Aneesh Chopra is the United States Chief Technology Officer and in this role serves as an Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Technology within the Office of Science & Technology Policy. He works to advance the President’s technology agenda by fostering new ideas and encouraging government-wide coordination to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to protecting the homeland. He was sworn in on May 22nd, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he served as Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2006 until April 2009. He previously served as Managing Director with the Advisory Board Company, a publicly-traded healthcare think tank. Chopra was named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue in 2008.

I was very pleased with our track Building Data in the Cloud. Anno start off by defining why the cloud is so cost effective and powerful.

Cloud Computing is the latest technology trend in the IT market. Today, popular cloud services include Netflix, Google Docs, Windows Live, Flickr, Facebook, and MobileMe, to name just a few. Even Microsoft's 'To the cloud!' TV commercials are part of a recent trend to market cloud computing to consumers.

The primary advantage of cloud computing is the significantly lower cost required for data processing services when compared with the older model of establishing and maintaining software and its associated hardware on an internal system. The use of a cloud system removes the need for the potentially large capital and operating costs associated with purchasing or leasing such software and hardware and shifts the costs to a usage-based model. This can also substantially simplify a company’s software and hardware structure and the associated costs. Cloud computing allows companies to better control the capex and opex associated with non-core activities.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] After a brief overview of Cloud Computing basics, this session discussed the benefits and advantages of using Cloud Computing for Smart Grid, Energy and BAS applications.

Be sure to view Anno's power point. Cloud Computing uses the Internet as the means to share resources, hardware, software, and information on-demand. Like with the electric utility, you don’t own nor manage the generator or the wires. You just pay forwhat you use.

The convergence of traditional IT technologies built to manage data and the “rest of the world” has been going on for some time and it continues to accelerate. For many of us the results of this convergence are becoming a common and ubiquitous part of our everyday lifestyle. For example take that so called “smart phone” you have. Is it a phone? Is it a personal computer? Is it an energy resource management system if connected to an BMS/EMS?

In the massively interconnected world of today, the problem space of an application can span many different organizational areas both internal and external to the building. Each has its own specific technology, process, organization, terminology, etc., but the lifeblood of the application is the data used to enable its capabilities. As data passes through these areas it has a common life cycle from creation to destruction, but the adjectives that describe it change from area to area. This session will explore a data centric viewpoint of intelligent systems referred to as the data life cycle which includes specific application concepts as well as how to securely navigate the varying terrain.

John helped attendees understand:
- What we mean by the term analytics in respect to buildings, energy and equipment systems
- How analytics are applied and deliver value
- Perspectives from analytics applications in the IT world
- How the new open source "Project-Haystack" will help the industry move forward with analytics of building systems data

Dave Watson provided this presentation - Equipment Performance Characterization Using Field Measured Data Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratorySponsored by the US Department of Energy

Jim Hanna provided great insight from his prespective in a presnetation called The Role of Analytics in Delivering HVAC Performance Management

Of course there were many other presentations in our session all providing more dimension to the cloud, but I feel that you should at least quickly review these pdfs to better understand the use of cloud services in our indsutry.

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