The S4 Group, Inc.

The S4 Open: OPC-N2 Router from the S4 Group creates flexibility and cost savings in Building Automation systems. The OPC-N2 Router from the S4 group is the gateway to third party product integration into the Metasys^® N2 environment, enables seamless OPC integration with N2 networks, Ethernet compatibility, and introduces cost saving in virtually every upgrade, maintenance, or replacement on the N2 bus. 

• Ability to bring many N2 buses in a large complex building into one virtual N2 Network©. The S4 Open Appliance acts as the bus master for each Bus and allows independent adjustment of polling rates and other parameters.
• Standard vendor tools are used to configure N2 devices on each N2 bus.
• Automatically locates and identifies new devices, and their Process Points on the N2 bus.
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An overlooked business opportunity that many of our partners may want to consider.

If you, or you staff, have experience with either Metasys® M-Graphics or Iconics Genesis32 / Genesis64 you can migrate existing Metasys® M3 and M5 workstations to a commercial off the shelf Iconics workstation and port existing graphics to the new system.

Problem:

JCI OEMed Genesis32 from Iconics as the primary component of their M3 and M5 workstations. When they went to their current generation (MESA) of supervisory controllers they left their large installed base of M3 and M5 workstation users stranded unless they wanted to move to either the NAE or the Facility Explorer products. If customers made the move they had to abandon their investment in graphics and start over. A lot of them made huge investments in graphics development.

Solution:

1. Install our S4 Open: OPC-N2 Router into an existing  Metasys® system with a NCM or N30 supervisory controller and either a M3 or M5 workstation.
2. Install a commercially available copy of Genesis32 (or now Genesis64) on a new server platform
3. Copy all of the graphics from the existing M3 or M5 workstation to the new system. You'll need to re-map the points but that's minor compared to starting over.
4. Add your own value by enhancing the graphics that you copied and utilizing features from Genesis32, or Genesis64, that were not available in the M-Series workstations.
5. Decommission the M3 or M5 workstation except for anything that is still needed to administratively support or re-commission the Metasys® controllers when needed.
6. The N30 or NCM supervisory controllers can stay in place delivering the algorithms that they were programmed to provide for the installation. In the future, if you decide to duplicate that logic elsewhere (with the Iconics tools or other OPC-based client software) you can remove the N30 or NCM and our OPC-N2 Router will transparently take over as the N2 bus master.
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