Tip of the Week #2

Last week we published tip one of a four article series on integrations.

Today we will talk through tip #2 which is:

To align protocol to protocol and make sure that rules your protocol has aligns with the protocol you are trying to integrate with.

When you hear the term integration what do you think about?

If you’re like most folks in the building automation space then you are thinking of protocols!

A protocol is the rules of how something communicates.

Did you catch that, I will repeat this, a protocol is the rules of how something communicates.

This is critical for you to grasp, I meet so many people who try to make protocols with conflicting rules communicate. For example, CoAP uses the UDP protocol, meaning it uses an unreliable protocol. BACnet also uses the UDP protocol.

Therefore if you are trying to build an adapter between CoAP and BACnet/IP you are using consistent transfer protocols.

Now if all this made you say um….

That’s ok, the thing is when you are working with protocols you need to understand their rules up and down the protocol stack.

So this week’s tip is to align protocol to protocol and make sure that rules your protocol has aligns with the protocol you are trying to integrate with.

In next week's tip we will talk through how to use an adapter pattern to work with protocols that conflict with one another.

To your success,

-Phil

The Tip of the Day sequence is sponsored by our training program Building Automation Systems A to Z, click here to learn more.