Reaching new heights in building management with over-the-air updates

Building management systems face mounting pressure to embrace new technology demands

Climate change is transforming building management systems (BMS) into smart, distributed infrastructure management, driving investment in clean tech, and pushing new government regulations. In addition to renewable energy and electric vehicle charging stations, BMS is rapidly adopting energy efficiency, grid optimization, and responsible resource management solutions known as Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). From smart heat pumps to water heaters to appliances to consumer electronics, BMS must incorporate clean energy supply patterns and climate tech into its infrastructure to stay competitive and compliant in a quickly changing regulatory environment.

With the rapid adoption of new technologies alongside a growing number of sophisticated nation-state cyber attacks, BMS is experiencing a merger between safety and cybersecurity, similar to other industries covering critical infrastructure.

Safety-critical is traditionally defined as life-threatening issues for building infrastructure. The merge of digital and physical means kinetic, smart infrastructure, like elevators, is a safety and cybersecurity concern.

The COVID-19 pandemic rewrote the BMS industry as companies quickly shifted to “remote work,” including building infrastructure workers. While buildings were scarcely occupied, they were also being remotely managed. As such, BMS accelerated the adoption of remote management technologies to increase efficiencies and reduce costs. And the trend has not slowed with the continued adoption of new technologies to support a hybrid workforce, such as occupancy wellness, productivity, and space optimization technologies.

Enabling this transformation is one underlying element: ever-increasing connectivity and software in building infrastructure. OEMs need to not only acquire new software and tech skills to develop their products, they also need software infrastructure that remotely troubleshoots, secures, updates, and monitors the devices. Deploying robust, secure, and customizable over-the-air (OTA) software updates – per device, system, or whole building – is essential to remote software infrastructure. Only then can OEMs modify field products to improve the customer experience and fix issues remotely and efficiently at scale.

To support this pivotal transition, the industry requires the infrastructure to manage devices across a heterogeneous ecosystem.

Robust, secure, customizable OTA updates for field devices with open-source client and server solution

Mender offers robust, secure, and customizable OTA updates for devices, systems, or entire buildings. Powering OTA updates for IoT devices for nearly a decade, Mender boasts a proven track record with Fortune 1000 clients, including Cisco, and industry leaders, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp, and Valliant.

With Mender, quickly integrate the market-leading open-source OTA update management solution into each smart building solution, system, or the entire connected building — without the risk of lock-in or instability.

Remain in control, avoid vendor lock-in, and protect your business agility

	Deliver secure, robust, and fail-safe remote updates. Optimize operations and resource usage with delta, automated, phased, and dynamic grouping deployments. Ensure your devices or systems are never bricked and inaccessible with a fail-safe design.
	Monitor your smart solutions in real time. Mitigate risks and identify disruptions with system-wide log monitoring, automated alerts, and email notifications. Manage uptime with real-time visibility of services and applications across your building.
	Configure devices and applications with ease. Manage and secure configuration changes with role-based access control, configuration history, and change log audits. Define attributes, customize scripts and track configuration changes.
	Troubleshoot instantly, and resolve quickly. Ensure safety and security with complete remote terminal session replays, connection logs, and access control Diagnose and remediate issues immediately with real-time device or system access, file transfers, and device testing.

Industrial-grade Capabilities

Robust A/B Updates. Eliminate expensive and damaging recalls due to update inconsistency. Instantaneous deployment, automatic rollback upon update failure, and phased, gradual rollouts ensure update success.

Consistent system-wide updates. Devices within a bigger system, like part of an HVAC system, are only known to function if they are all on the same software version. Ensure all-or-nothing updates, so all devices roll back if one or more fails to update.

Full on-premise support. Retain complete control and flexibility to migrate as your business evolves. Quickly deploy Mender as SaaS service or on-premise solution.

Delta, application, & configuration updates. Improve operations and slash resource requirements. Mender's delta updates and targeted application and configuration updates reduce network traffic and device downtime.

Gateway for network connectivity and caching. Deploy updates to devices not directly connected to the Internet, e.g., via segregated LAN. Reduce network traffic by order of magnitudes by caching software updates at Mender Gateways in the building.

Respect maintenance windows. Ensure that updates are only installed during maintenance windows, e.g., at night, by scheduling start time, and guarantee that devices are not in use by encoding arbitrary validation conditions in update packages.

Cryptographic integrity verification. Ensure that only authorized, integral binaries are installed on target systems with secure TLS communication between the building and server, and cryptographic verification of binary signatures.