Matthieu Brucher's blog » Springer http://matt.eifelle.com Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:04:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Book review: Building Automation: Communication Systems with EIB/KNX, LON and BACnethttp://matt.eifelle.com/2010/06/08/book-review-building-automation-communication-systems-with-eibknx-lon-and-bacnet/ http://matt.eifelle.com/2010/06/08/book-review-building-automation-communication-systems-with-eibknx-lon-and-bacnet/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:16:30 +0000 Matt http://matt.eifelle.com/?p=1203 After last week review, I’ve decided to try another book from a much higher standard publisher, Springer. The price is also far higher, but it covers what I think are the current best supports for building automation.

Content and opinions

There are three book’s authors, three German people, as Germany is one of the countries where building automation is well developped.

The first chapter describes what building automation is. Its sub-categories are also explained (control, measurement and management), and I have to say that there are some differences that I didn’t apprehend before. Automation has several clear benefits: comfort with automatic heating, lights, … but also economies as a good heating control will lead to less consumption. This can really help in commercial or industrial buildings. It’s also astonishing to see that even new bulding do not come with a complete automation system. Heating is almost handled, but lights and blinds are not. Heating is not completely handled in my opinion because settings cannot be given outside your office.

The second chapter is perhaps the less interesting of the five. If you have basis in telecommunications, it will be a rehearsal of your first class. If you have not, you will at least know how it can work.

Now, the book has three chapters on each of the main automation technologies, Konnex, LON and BACnet. Each time, the chapter is independent, and sometimes you even learn something on a technology when reading the next one. When I say independent, I mean that you don’t need to read the other chapters if you want to read only one. It also means that you will see redundancy. This could be explained by each author writting his own chapter without much interaction on their content.

Each time, you will learn every detail of the different busses, with perhaps sometimes too many. For BACnet, you will go through the Ethernet interface in detail, although it is something really common in the ISO model. But to select the right bus, you need to know everything it can provide.

Conclusion

Contrary to my last book, this one was really interesting. I didn’t know that KNX was mainly based on one BCU (Bus Coupling Unit) with different actuators. Although you can also do management with KNX, I concur that it is a control bus at heart. I also appreciate the fact that each bus is open in the sense that there are several manufacturers that can provide appliances, and that their operation is clearly explained.

If you don’t know what building automation is and if you want to build your home, a commercial building, or if you renovate something, this book can help you should an adequate automation bus. Don’t forget that in these times of peak energy, economy associated with better comfort is a horse that can win the race.

Building Automation: Communication systems with EIB/KNX, LON and BACnet (Signals and Communication Technology) (Hardcover)
by Hermann Merz, Thomas Hansemann, Christof Hübner
ISBN: 3540888284

Price: USD 87.20
26 used & new available from USD 81.05

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]]> http://matt.eifelle.com/2010/06/08/book-review-building-automation-communication-systems-with-eibknx-lon-and-bacnet/feed/ 0 Book review: From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers In A Client/Server Worldhttp://matt.eifelle.com/2008/05/06/book-review-from-p2p-to-web-services-and-grids-peers-in-a-clientserver-world/ http://matt.eifelle.com/2008/05/06/book-review-from-p2p-to-web-services-and-grids-peers-in-a-clientserver-world/#comments Tue, 06 May 2008 07:29:41 +0000 Matt http://matt.eifelle.com/?p=59 I was looking for an introductory book on peer-to-peer (P2P) application and their application to grid computation. Web services was a bonus, as it is something I don’t usually play with.

Content and opinions

The book is split in four parts. The first chapter is an introduction to distributed systems, with the definitions and some examples of what is and what is not a centralized (by opposition to decentralized) application or framework. For people novice to P2P, the examples and the problems are well presented.

The first part goes into details of a distributed environment. The P2P solution is thus exposed, with its specific aspects, social (P2P has not a good reputation, to say the least) or routing (accessing peer behind firewalls, routers). As web services are one of the main subjects of the book, they are presented next. The last chapter tackles grid computing through its evolution, the current definition of a grid and the Globus Toolkit 2 architecture. Those chapters are really interesting because they lay down the ground for the remaining of the book.

The second part is about several P2P technologies that can be used, as well as some specific issues. Jini and Gnutella are the first ones to be exposed. They were not developed to answer to the same questions: Jini is about Remote Objects and Gnutella is about file sharing. These technologies introduce the issues of scalability and security ; the first tackles the use of more nodes in the grid, the second the protection of the grid. Finally, Freenet and JXTA are exposed. The first is dedicated to fiel storage on a distributed data grid, the second is a generic P2P framework. The chapters on the different technologies do not bring more information than what can be found on tutorials on the net, but they explain them in a clear way. Scalability and security are aspects that are sometimes forgotten in the design of a distributed system, so their presence in this part of the book helps remembering them.

Part three tackles Jini, JXTA and web service deployement. The first two chapters have some code samples that can be used ; for web service, there is only some XML fragments. Several formats are exposed in this chapter with their advantages and drawbacks.

Finally, the fourth chapter presents web services applied to grid systems. This gives grid services. The Globus toolkit 3 can be used for those grid services, and the future version 4 is introduced as well. This part is the shortest, maybe because these special services are not widely used, and a lot should still be explored to have a clear software designed (which may be used by the Globus toolkit 4, according to the book).

Conclusion

The good writting style of the book helps reading the book, as some pages can be difficult to understand. The final goal is to present grid services, with the underlying frameworks and tools that are grid (and P2P) systems and web services. The beginner is taken from the basics to advanced concepts, which can be applied to concrete grids.

If grid computation, how they can be done, and web services are of interest to you, I suggest you read this book.

From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client/Server World (Paperback)
by Ian J. Taylor, Andrew Harrison
ISBN: 1852338695

Price: USD 60.14
18 used & new available from USD 21.09

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