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BACnet Insight

© ASHRAE

User interface of the XCA tool by Christian Hohnstädt.

Thankfully, Christian Hohnstädt himself explains Conclusion BACtwin Symposium in Mainz
many of the above steps in a video tutorial on his
website. He also goes into XCA convenience fea- It is easy to recognize that setting up a func- Building owners, planners and operators
tures, such as the creation of templates to make tioning BACnet/SC environment involves a con- meet on 24.09.2024 to exchange
it easier to issue similar certificates in series. siderable amount of extra work and the certifi- experiences on the digitalization of
Further instructions on using XCA specifically for cate issues described here are only part of it. It technical building management using
BACnet/SC can be found on the web [2]. is not without reason that ‘security has its price’! BACtwin. This standardization published in
However, there are signs that generally binding April 2024 as AMEV Recommendation No.
Unfortunately, issuing certificates only once is mechanisms for certificate management could 174 as a digital data model for BACnet-
not enough. To increase security, for example, be standardized in future BACnet protocol revi- based BA systems promises, among other
it is recommended that their validity be given sions, which would further simplify the task even things, true manufacturer neutrality and
a sensible expiry date, i.e. no more than one in mixed environments. In any case, BACnet machine readability of BACnet projects. The
year in the future. The procedure must then be Secure Connect has closed a serious gap and first operators of large real estate portfolios
repeated before the year expires. ensured the future viability of the protocol.  are already prescribing BACtwin, including
for federal construction. The event is
Footnotes organized by ICONAG-Leittechnik in
[1] www.hohnstaedt.de/xca/ cooperation with the AMEV AK BACtwin and
[2] www.mbs-support.de/bacnet/sc-zertifikate- other industry partners. Information and
erstellen registration at https://lp.iconag.com/
bactwin2024

Hans-Jürgen Philippi
Software DeveloperICONAG-Leittechnik GmbH
hans.philippi@iconag.comwww.iconag.com

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