Intel’s Building Management Platform is designed to make it easier to connect building systems to the cloud.

The Building Management Platform aims to make it easier for software developers, system integrators, and system installers to deliver smart building solutions for small and medium size buildings. The Intel platform “preintegrates” sensors, a gateway, and a software stack, so that developers and integrators can focus on what’s known as the “application layer” — the actual building solution designed to improve energy efficiency or increase comfort, to take two common examples.

“We really are working to ensure that it’s easy for those solution providers that are working on top of the Building Management Platform to focus on the use cases that they’re trying to deploy,” says Christine Boles, director of smart building solutions, IoT group, Intel.

Small and medium size buildings traditionally have found building management systems too costly to deploy, says Boles. “We really wanted to make that a simpler deployment but still have it secure and managed so the facility manager could trust that solution.”

The Building Management Platform connects to a range of building systems and devices that use a variety of protocols and sends their data to cloud-based services and applications for business intelligence (BI), analytics, dashboards, and other applications. The platform filters and securely transfers the building system and device data to the cloud (or on-premises servers), handling the protocol translations needed in between. These connections can be made to air handling units, chillers, thermostats, electrical meters, lighting control, and video cameras using standard protocols such as BACnet, ZigBee, Insteon, Z-Wave, IP, and more.

Open access to data and cyber security are two key benefits of the Building Management Platform. “For the building owner, building manager, or facility manager to have a solution that can evolve with them and meet their ultimate needs, you need a more open approach,” says Boles. “And of course you need to know it’s a secure approach or your IT department isn’t going to allow it in.”

The platform is hardened and protected using McAfee Embedded Control software to enforce system integrity and help in preventing known and unknown threats and attacks. The platform communicates with a cloud service used to remotely maintain the software with over-the-air updates of protocol drivers, critical security patches, etc.