jim_duffy
Managing Editor

Latest Cisco emerging tech is building smarts

Analysis
Jul 1, 20092 mins

Smart Connected Buildings one of 30 market adjacencies company addressing

Cisco’s latest emerging technology — or latest $1 billion-plus opportunity — is Smart Connected Buildings, a market which requires an information network to enable buildings and cities to increase energy efficiency. Smart Connected Buildings falls under Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities initiative, one of the 30 market adjacencies Cisco is addressing in addition to its core routing and switching infrastructure business.

The brains behind the building smarts is the Cisco Network Building Mediator, which interconnects building systems such as HVAC, lighting, electrical and security to manage energy consumption in that building. The mediator also allows building managers to add and support renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind and fuel cells, while monitoring existing systems, Cisco says.

The mediator gathers building system data and converts it into an XML/SOAP format for digestion by applications, services and management systems. It supports Cisco’s EnergyWise software for energy usage management, and applications from more than 20 developer partners. 

The mediator is available now and costs $5,000.

Smart Connected Buildings is the office equivalent of Cisco’s Smart Grid program, which aims to allow utilities to manage enregy consumption in neighborhoods via an IP network. Cisco has tabbed this opportunity to be between $20 billion and $100 billion, and about 1000x the size of the Internet in terms of equipment scale.

Smart Connected Buildings is a new Cisco business unit, incubated and headquartered out of the company’s Globalisation Centre East in Bangalore, India. It includes technology from Cisco’s acquisition of building management company Richards-Zeta in January.

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