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Anniversary – 30 years of BACnet Jubiläum – 30 Jahre BACnet

30 Years of BACnet – A Personal

Retrospective from the Management Level

30 Jahre BACnet – ein persönlicher

Rückblick von der Managementebene

When we began developing B-CON in the The Early Years: Openness as the Exception BACnet provides features that are
mid-1990s, our vision was clear: specifically tailored to the requirements of
to provide a vendor-neutral management In the late 1990s, BACnet was hardly established the management level, such as:
layer for the technical operation of non- in Europe. Other open systems were entering ƒ Object definitions that extend a data
residential buildings. What was already the market: LON from the United States and, in point – for example the Present Value
emerging in industrial automation was Europe, the former European Installation Bus, – with properties such as limits, alarm
almost completely absent from building now known as KNX. The desire for vendor- conditions, and status information
B
automation at that time. neutral solutions clearly existed – however, ƒ rowsing capabilities that make it
The market was dominated by proprietary their implementation remained fragmented and possible to discover and use data points
systems, closed ecosystems, and strong limited. directly from the network, without being
dependencies on individual manufacturers. fully dependent on the preparatory work
During this period, not only our software BACnet on My Desk – But Without the of individual system integrators
B-CON was created, but also the BACnet “Aha” Moment
protocol – both of which are celebrating This opened up entirely new possibilities for
their 30th anniversary this year. It was only with the relocation of the German more efficient, transparent, and sustainable
Als wir Mitte der 1990er-Jahre mit der Ent- federal government from Bonn to Berlin, technical building management.
wicklung von B-CON begannen, war unsere combined with the mandatory requirement to use
Vision klar: eine herstellerneutrale Manage- BACnet, that the protocol landed concretely on 20 Years of BACnet by Conviction
mentebene für die technische Betriebsfüh- my desk for the first time. However, BACnet was
rung von Nichtwohngebäuden. Was sich in also implemented there – as almost everywhere Since recognizing these advantages, we
der Industrieautomation bereits abzeich- else – primarily via OPC at the management have been committed promoters of BACnet
nete, fehlte der Gebäudeautomation nahezu level. To be honest, at that time I did not see any for around 20 years. The standard is deeply
vollständig. real added value. embedded in our software B-CON, which is
Der Markt war geprägt von proprietä- B-AWS BTL-certified.
ren Systemen, geschlossenen Welten und The Turning Point: BACnet as an Enabler
hoher Abhängigkeit von einzelnen Her- of the Management Level. Within the scope of our capabilities, we are
stellern. In dieser Zeit entstand nicht nur also actively involved in BIG-EU and advise
unsere Software B-CON, sondern auch das In the mid-2000s, it became clear to me that operators of large real-estate portfolios on
BACnet-Protokoll – beide werden in diesem this was precisely where the misconception lay. defining clear requirements to ensure that
Jahr 30 Jahre alt. A pure OPC integration does not exploit the BACnet is implemented in a truly vendor-
potential of BACnet – quite the opposite. neutral and portfolio-wide manner.

Advantages of vendor
independence: higher
operational reliability in
multi-vendor systems,
seamless interfaces,
increased competition,
and lower operating cost
Vorteile der
Herstellerneutralität:
höhere Betriebssicherheit
in Multi-Vendoranlagen,
abstimmungsfreie
Schnittstellen, mehr
Wettbewerb, niedrigere
Betriebskosten
© ICONAG

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