ORLANDO, Fla. - Richard-Zeta Building Intelligence Inc., Panduit, and Cisco Systems Inc. announced a collaborative effort in working towards delivering a complete Internet protocol (IP) centric solution to bring the power of the Internet to businesses through Cisco's Real Estate Marketing Development (REMD) initiative under the Cisco Connected Real Estate Program.

According to the companies involved, the collaboration extends the utilization of many companies' installed Cisco IP backbone "by further leveraging the existing facilities assets, offering the ability to gain access to operational data and make proactive decisions to improve services, lower energy costs, improve resource utilization, and improve the bottom line."

The effort will link disparate building systems of different manufacturers and protocols using Richard Zeta's Omega suite and Cisco's core products, through Panduit's Power over Ethernet (PoE) patch panels, racks, and structured cabling systems. In this way, a client should be able to manage a single building or complete portfolio of buildings using the IP network to its fullest.

"The utilization of Omega on Cisco's IP backbone, powered by Panduit's rack-mounted PoE equipment, effectively eliminates the long-standing problems in the building controls industry of connecting multiple disparate systems using other ‘open' protocols such as BACnet and LonWorks, as well as many proprietary protocols from multiple manufacturers," the companies stated.

"This mismatch of protocols has created an ever-widening gap between the aggregations of other IT data required in business today, a concept Cisco pioneered, and the ability to effectively manage the real estate assets of all companies globally."

Publication date: 02/28/2005