Data infrastructure is invisible when it works well. At a well-functioning site, the data layer stays out of sight, and a Cx team can focus on the building’s equipment and performance. Cx team members want to know whether the AHU is short-cycling, how the chiller plant is sequencing, and what to make of a flagged trend that could be either a real fault or just sensor drift. Cx team members are rightly less concerned about how the data they need is made available. They notice when the data they require are not where it needs to be. Getting that data where it needs to be is the work ACE IoT does for our partners.
Our partnership with BES Plus Tech provides a clear example of what becomes possible once a data layer–even an invisible one!–is reliable.
Meet BES Plus Tech
BES Plus Tech is a commissioning-focused software company that has been building tools for the Cx world for more than a decade. Their founder Andy Heitman came up through commissioning practice, and their software solutions reflect it. Commissioning agents, energy managers, and facility teams use BES Plus Tech’s platform Performance Plus to leverage BAS data including virtual metrics and meters with automated diagnostics that catch faults between scheduled site visits. With extremely flexible and customizable data visualization and issue tracking their platform works together with their clients to maximize the efficiency of their infrastructure.
Performance Plus is where ACE IoT shows up in the BES Plus Tech stack.
Where ACE Comes In
Performance Plus runs on a steady feed of BACnet data from each building it serves, before BES Tech partnered with ACE IoT, this work of getting reliable BACnet data fell to the BES Plus Tech team. Most often new sites arrived with a different controls vendor, a different network topology, and a different IT department asking questions about what was about to land on their OT segment. Project scopes stretched and onboarding timelines lengthened. For BES Tech, BACnet data plumbing was absorbing hours that the team could be spending on expanding site deployments or developing Performance Plus itself.
ACE IoT now handles the data plumbing for BES Tech. Our SkyHook gateway sits on the building network and pushes selected points to the Performance Plus platform through a one-way egress channel. ACE IoT helps support cybersecurity conversations with IT Departments and is responsible for device configuration and for maintaining a well functioning data connection. When ACE IoT is not receiving time series data from a site as expected, our operations team picks up the issue, traces it through the gateway and the building network, and coordinates with BES Plus Tech and their customer to restore the flow.
The graphic above shows the shape of the flow. Data leaves the building through a single device on the OT network, on a one-way route to the Performance Plus cloud. Between the cloud and the Performance Plus interface, traffic moves both ways. The architecture is simple by design, and BES Plus Tech can treat every new site as a software onboarding while ACE IoT handles the network side.
At the building, the deployment is small enough to fade into the background. Once approved for placement on an OT network, ACE IoT device sits on the network–most often on the same subnet as the BAS–and handles acquisition for all the selected points that are collected by the BAS. Audit logs live where a customer’s IT team can review them. The Cx firm working in the building spends its hours on performance investigations and ongoing optimization, while the data layer, as intended, stays out of sight.
Cx Capabilities Made Possible by an Invisible Data Layer
Monitoring-Based Commissioning
One capability Cx agents can adopt with access to Performance Plus and an invisible data layer is Monitoring-Based Commissioning, or Metrics-Based Commissioning. After the traditional commissioning process, the operational performance of buildings will unfortunately–but inevitably–decrease over time. Monitoring-based commissioning helps resolve this by identifying operational performance degradation and providing resolutions.
Firms that offer MBCx move from one-time, project-based work to ongoing client relationships with well performing buildings and recurring revenue streams. Most Cx firms looking to add MBCx offerings, however, have no way to provide a continuous, reliable stream of building data. ACE IoT provides the data stream an MBCx provider needs in order to help a building perform near first-day levels for months and years after handover.
Digital Commissioning
Once the data infrastructure is well-functioning, it can enable and support a new generation of advanced applications. Digital Commissioning (DCx) is the practice of verifying the data layer can support those applications. Buildings increasingly depend on their data layer to do things they never used to: feeding analytics platforms, supporting semantic models, and preparing the systems for the agentic AI tools that owners are starting to expect.
Andrew Rodgers and Andy Heitman recently presented on this topic at CxEnergy, walking through what it looks like to apply the traditional Cx discipline to the data layer. Verification of network performance, point integrity, BACnet device behavior, and semantic consistency all have increasing value to a Cx firms customer. Tools like ACE Sentinel let Cx teams evaluate whether a network is actually working as designed, both at handover and over time.
For a Cx firm, this is a new line of work and a new opportunity to deliver value for customers. Owners and their agents are asking for buildings that can support AI workflows, automated reporting, and standardized models that LLMs can reason against. Cx professionals who pick up the DCx scope have an opportunity to lead in this emerging space.
BES Plus Tech is an exciting example of what is possible when the data infrastructure is reliable and accessible. If your organization’s offerings would benefit from reliable, streamlined access to building data, we would be glad to talk through what a partnership might look like.
Contact ACE IoT to set up a call.
Further Reading:
BES Plus Tech: Performance Plus Overview (Video)
