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Testing Visual BACnet at BACnet Plugfest 2016

optigo at BACnet Plugfest 2016

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At the end of September, Optigo’s VP Product Management, Dan Ronald, and Software Engineer, Daniel Tan, took Visual BACnet to BACnet PlugFest at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. They spent 3 days working with engineers, developers and experts from major BACnet device manufacturers to test their products and ensure interoperability.  

At the end of September, Optigo’s VP Product Management, Dan Ronald, and Software Engineer, Daniel Tan, took Visual BACnet to BACnet PlugFest at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. They spent 3 days working with engineers, developers and experts from major BACnet device manufacturers to test their products and ensure interoperability.  

“BACnet PlugFest was an amazing experience! We weren’t sure what to expect, but everyone was very friendly and accommodating while showing us the ropes. We were able to catch a lot of real issues on the network while finding and fixing some bugs in our software.  We received a lot of great feedback on the tool which will go into enhancing the product.” – Dan Ronald, VP

The first day consisted of table pairings. We were paired with several companies throughout the day – using a switch connected to their network we were able to capture packets and upload them every 2 minutes. Throughout the pairings Visual BACnet performed well. The Network Health stayed consistently high in these systems,reflective of the small and simple setup for the pairings.

BACnet Plugfest Roundtable 

BACnet Plugfest Roundtable allows vendors to test their device on a larger, multi-vendor system

The second and third days focused on the Roundtable – a system set up with all participants’ devices. We were able to capture all of the traffic and do continuous uploads of traffic at 10-minute intervals. The larger system with constant changes showed far more interesting activity, with warnings and failures adjusting throughout the day. In general, as more vendors added their devices to the system, the Network Health score declined and an increasing number of checks failed.

We picked up on a considerable number of Global Who-Is and Who-Is Router requests, as all participants were trying to identify all of the devices as they were being added and taken off the network. When devices went offline, unresponsive devices spiked. We also picked up on duplicate device IDs, and discovered missing acknowledgments, error responses and long response times.

Throughout the three days at PlugFest, Dan and Daniel were able to test Visual BACnet in a variety of settings, gather lots of feedback, and do quick iterations and on-the-spot fixes and updates. They met a lot of great people, saw unique insights into the roundtable network, and enjoyed some delicious East Coast lobster.

Thanks to BACnet International and all of the attendees, and we look forward to BACnet PlugFest 2017.

BACnet PlugFest included a lobster dinner

BACnet PlugFest included a boat cruise featuring a lobster dinner. Definitely a highlight!

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