ACE IoT is thrilled to introduce ACE Sentinel, a groundbreaking addition to the ACE Aerodrome suite. Designed in collaboration with the Dartmouth College facilities team, ACE Sentinel is a valuable new tool for Smart Building Solution providers and folks administering campus-wide OT networks alike.
Need to ensure that new network devices are not assigned duplicate BACnet IDs?
Want to document your organization’s BACnet network and be notified when devices come on and go off the network?
Want to assess whether a building’s BACnet network is well-designed to support a new Smart Building app (e.g. Digital Twin, Automated System Optimization, or Peak Demand Limiting app)?
ACE Sentinel can help address these challenges - and many more!
Why ACE Sentinel?
Building automation systems (BAS) are increasingly central to the modern built environment. In most buildings, BAS are the most important lever that facilities operators can use to enhance a building’s operations. If BAS are the brains of a modern building, the operational technology (OT) network is the modern building’s central nervous system.
In ACE IoT’s experience, the OT networks connecting HVAC, metering and sensing devices, and equipment in buildings are often under-provisioned and over-burdened. Unlike IT networks that are actively managed by dedicated staff and other resources, OT networks are often unmanaged after they are established by the BAS vendor. When ACE IoT and our customers have unexpected difficulty acquiring time series data from HVAC equipment in a building, it is often the OT network that is the source of the difficulty.
With the release of ACE Sentinel, ACE IoT customers can now visualize and document a building or campus’s BACnet communication networks. Additionally, ACE Sentinel empowers customers to monitor and track changes in BACnet communication networks using an innovative compare functionality. With this capability, ACE IoT customers can collect and manage data about the BACnet networks in our easy to access Aerodrome managed cloud platform, and track changes in the BACnet network over time.
Want to learn more about how ACE IoT’s customers are using ACE Sentinel’s compare functionality? Use this link to set-up a quick demo!
Proactive and Passive Monitoring with ACE Sentinel
Proactive Monitoring
One of ACE Sentinel’s standout features is its active monitoring capability. It proactively catalogs devices and network segments. ACE Sentinel users can choose to download Sentinel’s findings in tabular data, or to visualize its findings using a compelling new visualization tool.
ACE Sentinel includes tools like BACnet device discovery, network performance testing, connectivity verification, and real-time alerts for communication failures and provides users with snapshots of their organization’s BACnet networks at any/all times that ACE Sentinel is in operation.
Passive Monitoring
ACE Sentinel also supports passive monitoring, collecting and analyzing network traffic data. This feature delivers critical insights into network health by visualizing traffic in real time, detecting errors, and enabling detection of anomalies such as unusual traffic patterns or security risks. These insights simplify troubleshooting and support enhanced security measures for building systems.
Who Can Benefit from ACE Sentinel?
ACE Sentinel brings significant benefits to various stakeholders:
Building Owners and Operators: Ensure BAS reliability, minimize downtime, and maintain operational efficiency
Smart Building Advisors/System Integrators: Streamline installation, commissioning, and network diagnostics
Facility Managers: Optimize building performance with actionable, data-driven insights
Security Professionals: Enhance system security by detecting and addressing potential threats
Technical Features That Deliver
Deployed on the ACE IoT SkyHook gateway and seamlessly integrated with the Optigo Visual Networks™ platform, ACE Sentinel’s flexibility and scalability make it ideal for monitoring networks across multiple locations, all easily managed through the ACE Aerodrome cloud platform.
Additionally, ACE Sentinel supports BACnet/IP and BACnet MS/TP protocols and offers both Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Learn more
The launch of ACE Sentinel marks a significant step forward in empowering facilities teams and system integrators to manage their building networks with confidence. By combining proactive monitoring, in-depth traffic insights, and cutting-edge security features, ACE Sentinel sets a new standard for BACnet diagnostics.
To learn more about ACE Sentinel or to schedule a demo, please contact Bill Maguire at bill@aceiotsolutions.com.
Let ACE IoT be the trusted partner for smart building solutions.
A specific subnet showing multiple MSTP routers and networks attached
Example of information collected by Sentinel on each device in the network
Example of timeline compare functionality, showing devices added and removed between two dates
