Network horror stories

Some goblins and ghouls go bump in the night, and then there are BAS misconfigurations that frighten you! This Halloween, we’ve collected some of your spookiest network horror stories.
How to Find and Fix Unresponsive Devices with Optigo Visual BACnet

In theory, unresponsive devices are quite simple: it just means that something, somewhere, is getting lost in translation. But if the device isn’t communicating on the network, you might not even know it’s supposed to be there. Unresponsive Devices can cause a lot of unnecessary traffic on an Operational Technology network, but it can be […]
Become a BACnet Browser Pro

The BACnet Browser in Visual BACnet allows you to customize the information you see and isolate the specific packets you need to solve your problem. It’s one of the most powerful features in Visual BACnet, but an often confused or overlooked one. In this 10-minute webinar, we showed attendees how to navigate the BACnet Browser […]
Project Haystack and Tagging Explained

In building automation, there’s a growing — and very apparent — need for Project Haystack and tagging. For those not familiar, Project Haystack is a grassroots not-for-profit made up of industry representatives like Siemens, Lynxspring, and SkyFoundry. The group is promoting the adoption of data semantics (tagging) in OT networks. They’re dedicated to “fostering the common association […]
Which is ‘Better’: BACnet, LonWorks, Modbus, or KNX

BACnet gets compared to a lot of other protocols on the market, including LonWorks, Modbus, and KNX. In this article, we break down the advantages and disadvantages of each protocol. Be sure to check out our articles on each of the protocols: LonWorks, Modbus, KNX, and a few reasons we think you should adopt BACnet. […]
Learn to troubleshoot with Visual BACnet

Have a troublesome network and a packet capture (PCAP) file, but don’t know where to start with Visual BACnet? Our team of BACnet buffs has seen just about every BACnet issue under the sun. They regularly field questions on the best ways to filter, drill down, and pinpoint problems in Visual BACnet. To help, we […]
How to Use Visual BACnet Site Monitoring

Trying to keep up with rampant device issues, constant network changes, or vendors pointing fingers instead of solving problems? Visual BACnet Site Monitoring is indispensable on large BACnet networks. Our customers at Penn State University, Princeton University, and many other campuses have embedded it into their workflows, and they’ve seen a steady increase in their […]
Designing a Network Live On Camera

The worlds of IT and Operational Technology (OT) are merging more and more these days as the Internet of Things grows in prominence. This collaboration between IT and OT is great, but there are still gaps in understanding that keep these worlds from fully working together. To help, we teamed up with Distech Controls to […]
Secure Connect Q&A: Bernhard Isler and David Fisher

We recently hosted a webinar on BACnet Secure Connect (BACnet/SC) with special guests Bernhard Isler from Siemens and David Fisher from PolarSoft, two main figures behind BACnet/SC. We talked about why BACnet/SC was developed, and how it will affect everyday users. As expected, we got a ton of audience questions, on everything from hubs to […]
Introduction to BACnet Secure Connect

Everyone’s growing more aware of the need for cybersecurity. There have been so many cyberattacks in recent years, that it’s almost impossible to ignore. But there’s long been a view that cybersecurity is only an IT issue. Historically, building automation with BACnet has taken a different approach to cybersecurity, leading to confusion. That’s changing in […]