Smart Eagle - A bird's-eye view on heterogeneous networks for commercial and industrial sites

Abstract

IT infrastructures in commercial and industrial sites are recently undergoing an evolution, which requires them to integrate large numbers of heterogeneous devices, often using multi-protocol networks. One of the driver of this evolution is represented by a recent trend in the energy sector, where local sites are encouraged to build their own microgrids. Furthermore, the lowering costs of sites automation and monitoring systems are making their adoption by industrial and commercial sites much easier to justify.In order to make the most out of these innovations, the communication between all the players of these systems is vital, and a constant monitoring of it essential. However, despite the importance of the data network, there exist currently no vendor-independent analysis and management tools tailored for such networks, usually comprised of various, sometimes very different, network types. Therefore, we present Smart Eagle, a distributed network analysis and monitoring tool capable of dealing with building automation and low-rate wireless personal area networks. We introduce the architecture of Smart Eagle, and report on our experience in taking measurements on an existing site management communication network. In particular, we were able to gather meaningful measurements from both IEEE 802.15.4 and KNX networks, without intervening on existing devices or on the underlying network infrastructure.