Niagara 3.7 New Feature Review

September, 2012 © Tridium 2012

Security Crypto Updates

Certificate Management

Scalability Virtuals to Virtuals

General Enhancements Synthetic Types

Event Service

Type Subscription

Hardware Scan Service

User Interface Updated Graphics Library

Theming

History Reporting Enhancements

Lexicon Overhaul

Niagara Web Development Feature Summary

New Niagara Web Platform

Mobile Application Support Mobile App Reference Designs

Agenda

Features that benefit

the System Integrator

Features that benefit

Developers/OEMs

• Crypto Updates

• Certificate Management

Security

Who?

System Integrators

Features • SSLv3/TLSv1 for:

o Workbench to station support*

o Browser Workbench to station support (wbapplet)*

o Station to station support*

• Password Management o Expiration

o History

• Java-based Niagara Daemon*

*not available on JACE 2 or JACE 403/545

Crypto Feature Updates

Who? System Integrators

Features

• Tool for managing 3rd party and self-signed certificates • Generation of standard certificate requests

• Installation and management of certificates

• Management of trusted certificate authorities

• Certificates support PKI-based encryption for features like the

web server, email, SSL connections, and HTTPS, and any

other future features requiring PKI-based encryption

Certificate Management

Certificate Management

Certificate Management

• Virtuals to Virtuals

Scalability

How do Virtuals work?

Supervisor

JACE

• Supervisor graphics use JACE point data

• The point data might be used to show an outside

air temperature or a set point

• Virtual Points are created on the fly (only when

the point is viewed)

• If the point is no longer being viewed, it’s cleaned

up. This saves memory and greatly reduces the

size of a Supervisor

Virtuals to Virtuals

Who?

System Integrators Developers

Features

• In a tiered Niagara system, allows integrators to reach data points

(components) at any level in the system without having to map

permanent components

• Previously Niagara Virtuals were only useful for reaching components

1 tier below

• Allows for mapping Niagara Virtuals to Niagara Virtuals or other types

of Virtuals, such as BACnet Virtuals

• This is an important basis for Enterprise Architecture development

(Niagara Supervisor)

Virtuals to Virtuals

Supervisor

JACE BACnet

• The BACnet driver also supports Virtuals

• In 3.7, graphics can be created using Niagara Virtuals that map to BACnet

Virtuals on a JACE

• This makes the system more flexible and more memory efficient

Virtuals to Virtuals

Supervisor

JACE

Supervisor

Supervisor

JACE JACE JACE

• Niagara Virtuals can also map to other Niagara Virtuals

• Therefore, using Niagara Virtuals, an N-tiered Niagara architecture can

be created, improving Scalability

Virtuals to Virtuals

•Synthetic Types

•Event Service

•Type Subscription

•Hardware Scan Service

General Enhancements

Who? System Integrators Developers

Features • A mechanism for defining modules and types without any Java

source code

• Synthetic types can be used to bind a Px view to a certain type (this

was not possible previously)

• Developer APIs allow modules and types to be generated and

loaded at runtime

Synthetic Types

Synthetic Types

Who? Developers

Features Many applications have a need to generate and route events

through the system (similar to alarms). However, the events of

interest may be application specific. This feature provides the

plumbing to enable applications to easily generate, receive,

and route events.

Event Service

Event Service

Who? Developers

Features Many applications have a need to listen for component events

on any instance of a particular type that lives in the station

• This includes events like property changes, components being

added or removed, or flags being changed

• Prior to this enhancement, you could only subscribe for events on

a per-component basis, but now you can easily listen for events

to multiple components that share a common type

Type Subscription

Who? System Integrators Developers

Features • This service can be used to programmatically identify the

platform’s hardware at runtime

• The view associated with this service is very useful to

integrators at configuration time

Hardware Scan Service

Property sheet view

Hardware Scan Service

Hardware Scan Service

Basic View

Hardware Scan Service

Option Cards Installed

Option Cards installed

Hardware Scan Service

• Updated Graphics Library

• Theming

• History Reporting Enhancements

• Lexicon Overhaul

User Interface

Who? System Integrators

Updated Graphics Library

Features • Over 200 3-D and Photo-realistic BAS images to choose from

• Station only stores graphics that are used in Views to optimize

memory usage

Old vs. New

Updated Graphics Library

Who? Systems Integrators OEMs / Developers

Features •Themes allow customization the color scheme, fonts, and

icons according to SI preference via Niagara Style Sheet

(NSS) files

•OEMs can create themes to better match corporate branding

standards

Theming

Theming

Who?

Systems Integrators Developers

Features

• Aggregating several histories into a single time series

• Joining multiple histories by timestamp

• Common transforms for time series data scaling, quantization,

and rollups

• Includes an API for creating custom transforms

History Reporting Enhancements

History Reporting Enhancements

History Reporting Enhancements

Who?

OEMs / Developers

Features

Easier branding using lexicons • Deploys lexicons in modules (including the Tridium default

lexicons) that can be versioned

• Adds descriptive information to the module manifest schema

• Enhances the lexicon editor tool to improve lexicon

management/installation

Lexicon Overhaul

Lexicon Overhaul

Features for:

•System Integrators

•Developers

New Niagara Web Platform

• Industry Trends

• Server Side

• Client Side

Open Web Development

For non-programmers •Nav Files

•Px Views

Web Workbench

Hx/Px

For Programmers •Workbench Plugin API

•Hx API

•Java Servlet API

Niagara Web Development v3.6 (and earlier)

Wide adoption of mobile devices

Trend away from plug-in technology in web browsers

Industry leaders focusing on HTML5 Google

Microsoft

Apple

Adobe

Industry Trends

Reach the world of web developers

Decrease dependence on Java user interface technology

Avoid mobile platform wars

Niagara Web Development v3.7+

Integration of an industry standard Java templating engine:

Apache Velocity http://velocity.apache.org

Server side template engine for generating dynamic web content

with Niagara data

Server-Side Development

•Full-featured JavaScript API for

accessing Niagara from a web client

•Enables web developers to make

their own technology choices

•Simplifies integration of 3rd party

web libraries

•For Niagara developers, similar to

Niagara Java client API

JavaScript

Client-Side Development

Mobile App Reference Designs

• End User Apps

• System Integrator Apps

• Mobile Px Viewer

Mobile Application Support

Niagara mobile apps use the same software stack as desktop web apps • Open web standards (HTML, CSS, jQuery, etc.)

• Apache Velocity

• BajaScript

Niagara provides a small set of standard apps • Alarm management

• Scheduling

• History Viewer

• Property Sheet

• Mobile Px Viewer

Mobile Application Support

End User Apps

Mobile Application Support

Mobile Px Viewer

Mobile Application Support