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INTELLIGENT BUILDINGS

Common Infrastructure & Open

Technologies: The New Imperative for Smart

Building Networks

Mike Bonewitz
CTO
FTE Networks

he real estate sector has been challenged to evolve to an functionality, and tenant services instantly, instead of the lengthy
ever-increasing networked world. Demographics are shift- design, procure, and deploy process of legacy networks. The
Ting toward tenants expecting lightning fast broadband edge compute footprint can be as small as a refrigerator and
and Wi-Fi everywhere to support streaming video and innovative deployed in the traditional telco closet environments.
applications. Today, businesses are becoming more data-driven In the edge computing architecture, network, cloud, content,
and are looking for lease space that supports high-tech demands and data analytics all converge into a single network platform
for their always con- in an environment that
nected workforce. For evolves with the pace of
their part, smart building technology. This approach
Enterprise Network
operations and manage- guards against technolog-
ment rely more and more Operations Network Multiple overlapping ical obsolescence, with a
on connected sensors Building Admin networks are common infrastructure
and automation to drive expensive and barely that is configured for high
significant cost savings Residential/Tenant Network meet current availability, resiliency, and
and efficiencies. Guest/Public WiFi bandwidth demand scales on demand. Thus,
Despite the perva- the need for redundant
sive demand, no clear physical networks that are
blueprints exist for used today have quickly
building owners to implement a cost-effective and future-proof become outdated and are now eliminated. Leveraging edge
smart building and network infrastructure. Currently, a building computing is imperative to meet the higher demand for both
owner’s only option is to invest in multiple overlapping networks sustainably enabled smart/intelligent buildings and the ongo-
that are expensive and barely meet current bandwidth demand. ing demand from tenants for faster and more reliable network
And, unfortunately, the carrier and cable company offerings are services.
limited due to their outdated network architectures. At the same Since edge computing architectures are so flexible, the
time, these carriers are benefiting from direct control over the solution can be applied to many industries to support a very
cash flow and opportunities to sell value-added services directly wide range of applications. It enables new business models and
to tenants. revenues for owners that can host an edge computing solution.
Is there an intersection where costs and benefits meet current And, it gives the building owner or manager the opportunity to
technology and tenant needs? The answer lies in proven open control their own environment and offer services to their tenants.
source technologies and processes deployed by leading data- For example, property owners and managers can deliver specific
center, cloud, and social media companies such as Facebook, and targeted advertising, including coupons, video and interac-
Google, and Amazon. Data center architectures seamlessly tive, directly to shoppers and customers on their premises. Also,
integrate network and cloud (applications, data storage, analyt- next generation technologies, such as 8K and 360 video along
ics, security) into incredibly concentrated footprints. These new with virtual and augmented reality require edge computing to
architectures can now be deployed in-building at small scale via be effectively delivered.
edge computing. Large commercial buildings can exploit edge computing for a
Edge computing utilizes low cost commodity servers, switches, wide range of smart building applications and security, from HD
data storage and radio antenna arrays that are deployed in-build- video monitoring to power, HVAC control and locally secure IoT
ing, enabling new capabilities and scaling via continuously device gateways. For example, edge computing could be used to
upgradable, open source software releases. This model is akin provide video stream analysis for license plate tracking security
to going to an App Store to select and implement new features, services, keeping the data private within the building.

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