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Edge2Cloud: Connecting People to Their Buildings

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J2 Innovations Edge2Cloud technology is the first easy-to-deploy, fast, remote access solution for connecting people to their buildings. It provides simple remote access to building systems integrated by the FIN Framework, located at the edge. Typically these are the HVAC, lighting, and energy management systems. Because FIN Framework is an enabling technology for OEMs and equipment manufacturers, Edge2Cloud also helps our partners build out cloud-connected solutions, providing remote access to their products. 

Who it's for

Edge2Cloud was built to help all the stakeholders associated with smart buildings connect, manage, and perform duties faster than ever before. Traditionally, facility managers were required to physically access a site or utilize a technically complex IT solution for remote access. Now with Edge2Cloud, they can access any site at any time from anywhere. 

Building owners now require more access to data for optimized occupancy, energy efficiency, and sustainability requirements. With Edge2Cloud their entire portfolio and its data is now easy to use because it conforms to the Project Haystack data standard. 

With Edge2Cloud, even service providers can be given access and privilege rights to a portfolio quickly and easily utilizing global user management. For example, a commissioning agent or consultant can be intimately involved in the full life cycle of a building long after the initial construction phase. 

How it works

A typical smart building is a collection of subsystems and a supervisory control system that orchestrates and collects data for that site. The control and the information, therefore, live at the edge of the architecture, but there is still a need for a top-level management capability. This is where Edge2Cloud provides secure tunnels for remote access to the webpages served up by the FIN Framework at multiple sites. The communication is encrypted, providing a secure connection from the cloud to the site over the internet. By using Edge2Cloud, all the stakeholders have access to the entire portfolio.

Why it's important 

Edge2Cloud solves an industry problem where the users have to log into each site individually by providing single sign-on (SSO) capability. This means that by validating your credentials in Edge2Cloud once, you can access any number of buildings simply by clicking on the map. It's similar to how some people use Google to sign onto multiple websites without having to enter their credentials every single time. 

The goal of Edge2Cloud is to better connect people to their buildings without the need for extra IT support or VPN. It provides a faster way for customers to manage their portfolio of buildings remotely and securely, giving them a new view of the world and the data contained in it.

B. Scott Muench

Scott joined J2 Innovations as a partner in 2011, and is now Vice President of Customer Experience. He has a wide range of responsibilities including evangelism, business development, training, and operational excellence. Scott is well known as an industry expert in smarthomes and smart buildings. He is a past president of ASHRAE, and is currently a board member for Project Haystack. Scott attended Clarkson University for Mechanical Engineering and graduated with a BS/Business in Organizational Innovation.

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Topics from this blog: End User FIN Edge2Cloud Smart Buildings Technology Building Automation System Democratization BAS

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