Giving your building a voice – Cisco for smart buildings – Cisco Blogs

Hear those voices?  It is your building calling out to you.

From devices, sensors, and cameras to your Webex conferencing screens, the things in your building have been trying to communicate – to you and each other.

Are you listening?

Born out of necessity, as building technology has evolved, different systems handling different aspects of your building have likely been added without much interconnection.

 While managing multiple systems from different vendors can be an operations headache, these different systems create another problem – siloed data sources – meaning devices and sensor in different systems can’t talk to each other.

But they want to!

Breaking down the silos

Just as organizations open users to business data to expedite decision making, influence sales, improve customer service, and uncover opportunities, your building’s data can be used to speed reaction to changing environments and user needs, to positively influence the users experience and uncover issues before they become problems. In fact, this is what makes a smart building “smart”.

Cisco has been working for years on silo-busting technology that now serves as the foundation to Cisco smart building solutions. We have done so with a focus on security, simplicity, and reducing the cost to operate and power. While rarely mentioned, Cisco smart building solutions currently power, connect and secure hundreds of millions of square feet of office space all around the world – from NYC to Sydney to Mumbai to London and back.

This is the workplace of the future.

While interest in smart building technology had been primarily driven by the need to save energy and money, today, as we look to return to a trusted workplace, the data from that same converged, interconnected IT/OT network can be used to bring people back to an in-person workspace in safe, socially distant, and compliant ways.

The workplace of the future is going to be centered around people and how they connect to each other and interact with their environment. The good news is many companies have already figured out how to create a “trusted workplace”, and much of what they need already in place. Sensors and devices that have been used to better manage lighting and HVAC systems can be repurposed for occupancy and density monitoring, air quality testing, contact tracing, and in-room presence.

Cameras can be used for more than just security by offering visibility into how workspaces are being used. The Cisco Meraki MV smart camera line has advanced capabilities to provide customers with real-time and historical data on office, meeting room, and desk occupancy. They also feature machine-learning analytics to detect fire alarms and sirens for alerting and faster incident response, all without recording or storing audio.

By layering in the right software and connecting the right devices, data from your building can be extracted to provide the very insights necessary to make their workplaces safe, and to make them trusted. This software is Cisco DNA Spaces.

Extending Cisco DNA Spaces IoT gateway to Catalyst 9000 switches.

As part of Cisco smart building solutions portfolio, Cisco DNA Spaces has provided a powerful, end-to-end, indoor location services platform providing Cisco Catalyst 9000 and Meraki wireless customers with rich location-based services, including location analytics, business insights, customer experience management, asset tracking, safety and compliance, and IoT fleet management.

We are now making it even more effective by extending Cisco DNA Spaces to Catalyst 9000 switches with onboard IoT gateway included as part of the Cisco DNA Advantage and Premier licenses.

The integration of Cisco DNA Spaces IoT Gateways on Cisco Catalyst 9000 switches and Wi-Fi Access Points with opens the door to interconnecting hundreds of different types of endpoints from an ever-growing ecosystem of wired and wireless device and applications partners. Having the IoT Gateway on both Catalyst 9000 switches and access points at the edge provides faster notification of changes or failures, which translates to faster adaptation and a more agile, safer workspace – without additional hardware!

Cisco DNA Spaces IoT Gateways is a game changer for our smart building partners

Cisco offers a secure foundation for smart buildings with Catalyst 9000 and Cisco Meraki 90W UPOE+ switching, Wi-Fi 6, Cisco Meraki MV smart cameras and Webex endpoints, Cisco DNA Center/Meraki dashboard, and Cisco DNA Spaces. Security is built-in with network-based detection, including AI/ML-led classification and anomaly detection, network-based enforcement with micro/macro segmentation with SD-Access, and rapid threat control with ISE.

But it is our partners who provide the vast array of devices, sensor and controllers that make a smart building truly effective. Allowing their devices and applications to communicate with other previously disparate devices and applications broadens a whole new horizon of what is possible.

Using Cisco DNA Spaces to extract telemetry from connected devices and sensors relieves smart building application providers from the responsibility of trying to integrate with thousands of different devices. This creates an environment where innovation can happen faster, and options can be plenty.

Our partners have a voice as well. Read what they have to say:

“Cisco continues to lead in the connected device space.  The push with their Smart Buildings initiative is another example of that leadership. MHT is proud to be a participant in that initiative with integrations and continued partnership with Cisco solutions.”  
^{– Ira Horowitz, Chief Revenue Officer MHT Lighting}

“With a history of collaboration on network connected building solutions, Molex and Cisco will continue to lead and innovate smart buildings by feeding multi-sensor data to a central host, providing building analytics and orchestrating disparate building systems”
^{– Giovanni Frezza, Product Director, Molex Connected Enterprise Solutions}

“The focus on the enablement of smart building and spaces through PoE are great solutions today to address occupant well-being, energy efficiency, and other applications in the spaces.  Superior Essex is proud to be partnered with Cisco to ensure the connections between the PoE sources and devises are efficient and integrated just as our nervous systems in our bodies.”
^{– Brian Ensign, Vice President Marketing for Superior Essex Communications.}

“Cisco proves that amazing things can happen when you connect the unconnected, our partnership with Cisco completes the Bridge to Possible by connecting Cisco with other products and services via PlaceOS platform to drive integration and automation to create valued experiences for our clients.”
^{– Jonathan McFarlane, CEO & Co-Founder, PlaceOS}

“Creating smart buildings that provide occupant comfort and wellness has never been more important. Working together with Cisco, Somfy’s smart shading solutions have expanded the scope of Power over Ethernet (PoE) to include natural light management. Controlling natural and artificial lighting together creates smarter buildings with improved energy efficiency and peace-of-mind.”
^{– Frederic Waterlot, Global Strategy VP at Somfy}

This is just the beginning of our discussion on the future of work and Cisco smart building solution. The smart building’s time has come and Cisco plans to lead the way.

To learn more about our Cisco smart buildings solutions and the many ways in which we help our customers:

•             Visit cisco.com/go/smartbuildings.

•             Watch the Smart Buildings Trusted Workplace Video

Check out our Intent-Based Networking video channel.

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