 "Integration")
S4 Integration Framework
Common Features of all S4IS Products
Uniform USer Experience
The Integration Framework provides a uniform UI across all products, a consistent setup and configuration process, and identical BACnet gateway capabilities.
Liberal use of tooltips, information icons, and color coding of status information provides fast and intuitive navigation, built in definitions and guidance, and an event research tool offering detailed transaction logs.
Liberal use of tooltips, information icons, and color coding of status information provides fast and intuitive navigation, built in definitions and guidance, and an event research tool offering detailed transaction logs.
Set Up Wizard
The wizard walks the user through a review and confirmation of all system, BACnet, and target system parameters and properties to confirm that the system is ready to discover devices on the Downstream (field) Interface.
Device Type Templates
As each device on the Downstream Interface is discovered an appropriate template is chosen from our on-board catalog and assigned to the device. This automatically provides the BACnet point list and associated properties.
The template catalog is pre-installed in the system with standard templates for the target devices. The installer has the flexibility to modify standard templates or supplement them with custom templates they develop.
The template catalog is pre-installed in the system with standard templates for the target devices. The installer has the flexibility to modify standard templates or supplement them with custom templates they develop.
BACnet GATEWAY
S4IS products follow the BACnet standard for integrating 3rd party protocols. All devices are hosted on a virtual BACnet network. Each device is published as an emulated BACnet device on this virtual network with points published as properties of the device.
The S4IS device presents itself as a BACnet server acting as a BACnet gateway.
Device Instance numbers are automatically assigned to each device after confirming that the target Device ID has not already been allocated to another BACnet device in the BACnet internetwork.
The S4IS device itself is defined as a BACnet device enabling it to be monitored by the BACnet client.
The integration is facilitated by the BACnet Priority Array for each commandable point. This ensures that the S4IS user interface, BACnet, and the devices on the Downstream interface are always in sync.
The S4IS device presents itself as a BACnet server acting as a BACnet gateway.
Device Instance numbers are automatically assigned to each device after confirming that the target Device ID has not already been allocated to another BACnet device in the BACnet internetwork.
The S4IS device itself is defined as a BACnet device enabling it to be monitored by the BACnet client.
The integration is facilitated by the BACnet Priority Array for each commandable point. This ensures that the S4IS user interface, BACnet, and the devices on the Downstream interface are always in sync.
Performance Metrics
Instrumentation built into the system tells you how well the field bus is working, the status of each device on the field bus, how well the BACnet protocol is performing, what system resources are being used, and how the integration is performing. The tools are there to detect degrading operations before it becomes a crisis and effectively troubleshoot the installation when failures happen.
All statistics are available through the S4IS user interface. Field device statistics are published to BACnet along with device data points so that device performance can be monitored or trended in BACnet.
All statistics are available through the S4IS user interface. Field device statistics are published to BACnet along with device data points so that device performance can be monitored or trended in BACnet.
Error Detection and Recovery
The system monitors all transactions for proper operation. When intermittent errors are detected, the system will automatically try the transaction multiple times before failing a transaction.
If consistent timeouts are detected on a device on the Downstream Interface that device will be put into an Administratively Offline state. While in this state transactions from upstream interfaces will immediately be returned as having timeout errors without going to the field device. The system will periodically try to bring this device back online at a low priority.
If consistent timeouts are detected on a device on the Downstream Interface that device will be put into an Administratively Offline state. While in this state transactions from upstream interfaces will immediately be returned as having timeout errors without going to the field device. The system will periodically try to bring this device back online at a low priority.