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There are two fundamental reasons to monitor equipment. One is to alert the operator in the event of a failure or potential failure; the other is to gather data to evaluate maintenance and operational effectiveness. Because a converged system is more capable of communicating with more devices and exchanging data with other applications across the enterprise, both of these functions can be improved and expanded.

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Just as equipment monitoring provides information vital to operating the equipment being monitored, it is necessary for the environmental and energy consumption information within a single building or campus to be effectively communicated. In the past, there was often a disconnect between the data collected by the building management

system and the information required by an owner’s representative to effectively model and control energy usage. The ability to access and communicate both real-time and historical data between energy-using end devices and environmental monitoring devices (the building management system)—and enterprise computing applications—had not kept pace with other IT developments. Convergence provides the pipeline to deliver this information anywhere, anytime by using Web technologies as the delivery mechanism and avoiding the use of dedicated workstations that infinite users to a chair in a control room or office.

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Workstation-based UI Client/server-based UI Networked computing Supervisory controllers IT-enhanced engines Power at the core Proprietary OS Standard/open OS Enterprise IT compatibility Proprietary protocols Open/standard protocols Device interoperability Proprietary data storage Open/standard data storage Data