Enterprise Central

Introduction

EcoStruxure Building Operation Enterprise Central is the top-tier EcoStruxure BMS server in a large Building Management System and is intended for system specific tasks and supervision. Enterprise Central can host several Enterprise Servers, which in turn can host multiple field servers. As the dedicated server at the top of the system architecture hierarchy, Enterprise Central provides an entry point from which you can configure, control, monitor, and search the entire system. Enterprise Central collects site-wide data for aggregation and archiving and serves as a single point of administration through WorkStation or WebStation.

For Corporate Facility Managers, Senior Engineering Managers, Chief Space Planners and others who need to manage their buildings in a global, aggregated, and efficient manner, Enterprise Central is an EcoStruxure BMS server that allows users to scale operations management across the largest buildings, campuses, and multi-site corporate real estate portfolios from a single location by generating aggregated reports, standardizing critical security policies, normalizing alarm presentation and prioritization, and auditing activity across the entire organization.

Unlike other BMSs which focus on a single location or on a single aspect of the operation, Enterprise Central provides a single pane of glass across all aspects of a large real estate portfolio.

Features

Enterprise Central has the following main features:

• Global view, access, and search of the system

• Centralized alarms and data management:

  • Alarms from multiple servers

  • Event logs from multiple servers

  • Extended trend logs from multiple servers

  • Historical data storage from multiple servers

• Scalability

• User and domain management

• Windows Active Directory integration

Enterprise Server and Enterprise Central come with built-in support for modelling of the “digital twin” of the building, site, campus, and region using Brick Schema. WorkStation and WebStation provide enhanced human understandability through the additional context that is given to alarms and points through the “digital twin”. The required graph database is included in the installation packages. WorkStation can be used to create the model, or it can be imported using the graph database user interface.

The entire system, including all mid-tier Enterprise Servers and the base-tier field servers with their associated Central IO modules, field controllers, and other field devices, can be accessed and configured through Enterprise Central. When logged on to Enterprise Central, you can also search the entire system, and view alarm and event data from all associated Enterprise Servers and field servers. In short, with the exception of not hosting its own layer of field bus devices, Enterprise Central carries the same full feature set as the Enterprise Servers.

Alarms from the Enterprise Servers, field servers, and their associated devices throughout the site, are collected by Enterprise Central for centralized logging, display, and management. Alarms can trigger email, SNMP, file, or client notifications, which can include alarm, point value, or trend log data. Notifications can also be triggered periodically by schedules or other binary values.

Users can also view event logs and trend logs from multiple Enterprise Servers and field servers. The historical event data is collected from the multiple servers and stored in a central database.

EcoStruxure BMS servers can be configured to automatically store all historical data, trend log data, event log and audit trail data, in an external database. If data needs to be available for longer periods of time, an external log storage can be incorporated into the EcoStruxure BMS without the need for extensive engineering work. The supported databases are TimescaleDB, which is built on PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server. The data in the external log storage is available natively to the viewers built into the EcoStruxure Building Operation clients and to the built-in reporting functionality.

You can use the powerful Log Processor functionality for custom processing of trend data for viewing in charts, dashboards and for inclusion in reports. The Log Processor enables advanced calculations on one or multiple trend logs and point values.

Examples of advanced calculations:

• Energy usage normalization

• Virtual submeters and summaries

• Calculation of Mean Kinetic Temperature

• Unit conversions

• Average, maximum, and mini m um over custom periods

The output of the Log Processor can be saved in the database, including the External Log Storage or calculated automatically on demand.

Selected trend logs and the event log can be sent to AVEVA PI System directly without the need for intermediate storage or specialized PI System connectors.

You can use Enterprise Central to create and configure domains, user groups, and permissions.

The EcoStruxure BMS servers provide built-in functionality for basic reporting that can deliver reports in any text format and XLSX, without any dependencies to other external software. Reports for XLSX can be enriched by using advanced functionality such as formulas, conditional formatting, charts and sparklines.

Reports can be generated on schedule, on an alarm event or other custom conditions, and you can get the output delivered via email or written to file.

Using Enterprise Server and Enterprise Central, reports can be converted to PDF, and you can elevate the data security and traceability even further by using the optional add-on for automatically signing PDF reports with a digital certificate upon generation. This validates that the content has not been altered after the report was generated.

An EcoStruxure BMS provides a powerful permission system that is easy to manage, flexible, and adapts to all kinds of system sizes. The permission system provides a high standard of authentication. Authentication is done against the built-in user account management system , against Windows Active Directory Domains , or via SAML 2.0 single sign-on . The built-in account management system allows an administrator to establish password policies that meet stringent cybersecurity guidelines. When Windows Active Directory or SAML 2.0 authentication is used, the administration costs are lower because users do not have to be managed in multiple directories.

With Enterprise Central, the password policies are standardized across all hosted Enterprise Servers.

It is important to log more than basic activity. In an EcoStruxure BMS, every action is logged with a timestamp, the user who performed the action, and the values that were changed.

Through any client, the user experience is similar regardless of which EcoStruxure BMS server the user is logged on to. The user can log directly on to an Enterprise Central to commission, supervise, and monitor the Enterprise Servers and field servers with their attached Central IO modules, field controllers, and other field devices. For more information, see the WorkStation and WebStation specification sheets.

Enterprise Central supports the use of Web Services based on open standards, such as SOAP and REST, to consume data into the EcoStruxure BMS. Use incoming third-party data (temperature forecast, energy cost) over the Web to determine site modes, scheduling, and programming.

EcoStruxure Web Services, Schneider Electric’s Web Services standard, is natively supported in the EcoStruxure BMS servers. EcoStruxure Web Services offers extra features between compliant systems whether within Schneider Electric or other authorized systems. These features include access to semantic model, system directory browsing, read/write of current values, alarm receipt and acknowledgement, and historical trend log data. EcoStruxure Web Services requires user name and password to log on to the system.

The EcoStruxure BMS servers communicate using the networking standards. This makes installations easy, management simple, and transactions more secure.

• IP addressing

• TCP communications

• DHCP for easy network configuration

• DNS for simple lookup of addresses

• HTTP/HTTPS for internet access through firewalls, which enables remote monitoring and control

• NTP (Network Time Protocol) for time synchronization throughout the system

• SMTP or SMTPS with support for SSL/TLS based authentication, enables sending email messages triggered by schedule or alarm

• SNMP enables reception of application alarms in designated network management tools

Communication between clients and the EcoStruxure BMS servers , and between EcoStruxure BMS servers, can be encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS ). The servers are delivered with a default self-signed certificate. Commercial Certification Authority (CA) server certificates are supported to lower the risk of malicious information technology attacks. Use of encrypted communication can be enforced for both WorkStation and WebStation access.