Dr. Karyn Hall wrote The Emotionally Sensitive Person: Finding Peace When Your Emotions Overwhelm You to help such people identify emotional triggers, and to develop strong and healthy identity without becoming upset. When it comes to the world of building equipment, while these systems look tough and resilient on the outside, they are often quite sensitive and vulnerable. In Cyber-Physical Attack Recovery Procedures: A Step-by-Step Preparation and Response Guide (Apress Publishing ISBN 978-1484220641), Luis Ayala has written a most-helpful and informative guide on how to deal with security around building control systems (BCS). Ayala takes the approach that it’s inevitable that attackers will penetrate these systems, and when that occurs, the outcome can be devastating. Small adjustments of a few degrees, or a few pounds of water pressure in the wrong way, can have catastrophic and life-threatening ramifications. With about 50 pages of text and 100 pages of checklists, the book is a quick read.

The challenge for the information security staff is to get building engineers and managers, architects and their teams to understand and deal with the risks of leaving these systems in their insecure configurations. At many firms, the CISO needs to convince the head of physical security to put these requisite security controls in place. Security can no longer be an afterthought.air conditioning unit not turning on The book details the many methods of attack against pressure vessels, chillers, cooling towers, switchgear gas fuel trains and similar equipment. ac unit electricity costIt also details the ways in which you can prevent attackers from destroying these expensive systems.how to replace outdoor ac unit The checklists in the book, available on the book's companion website, are quite helpful.

Ayala has a number of rapid inspection checklists that can be used to document the condition of building equipment and determine how risky of a state they are in. While there doesn’t seem to have been many BCS attacks to date, the risk is increasing as these systems are being connected to corporate networks. The potential for a complete building shutdown—which has the capacity to lock out hundreds of firms and thousands of employees—is something that all building managers need to consider. For those in building management who may not be convinced of the risks, the cyber-attack trees the book details for chillers, air handling units and electrical switchgear should quiet even the most disconcerting voices. Ayala certainly knows his topics and lays them out well. The only minor issue with the book is that the author at times uses acronyms without defining them. For anyone concerned about keeping attackers out of their building control systems, Cyber-Physical Attack Recovery Procedures: A Step-by-Step Preparation and Response Guide is a most helpful and long overdue guide.

/business/customer-spotlights/marriott-waterfront on this server. Your technical support key is: 36bd-2442-1756-6707 Article - November 2002 True Analytics� - Energy Savings, Comfort, and Operational EfficiencyEcorithm - Cloud-Based Analytics Software was the industry doing before online training? Web-based system and see how learning and working has been made considerably starters, I can't imagine a world that requires continued education withoutNothing is more expensive than learning. money, and spaces to apply knowledge. All of this while endeavoring to gain specialized experience and understanding. But with each passing level, the pace of change demands more time, more money, and more space just to remain functional, much less competitive. For these reasons, and because remaining functional in business is being competitive, optimizing each element of the learning process to continually educate team members is critical for sustained

Fortunately, we have the Internet and the desire to "digitize" everything - this will make it easier. of those in the building automation and management industry is demanding enough without adapting to the Internet. Even to be a generalist in maintenance one must know mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. electrical systems alone continued education is needed to maintain awareness of new techniques for identifying problems early such as using ultrasound orThe Internet and publications like this one that bring awareness to online educational opportunities will only make becoming that expert who knows everything from running the sprinkler system to "rebooting" the building automation system much easier. that Internet technology is involved in the process, there's a bit more to learn and a lot less time to learn it. boilers, and air handling units - to name a few - are busy getting networked together, the knowledge base of a facility manager is increasing considerably.

Operators must understand a plethora of equipment made by manyThey also must know corrective, preventative, and predictive maintenance strategies as well as the root causes of degradation. also proprietary software that automates the building and requires its own specialized training course - hopefully with a user manual that can be takenAnd now, there's set-top boxes or routers, sensors, adapters, high-speed cable, on-site servers, Internet service providers, off-site servers and a central data center that all work together, so operators can knowledge requirements, "real-time" communications, and the demand from companies to decrease or eliminate as much down-time as possible, supplying operators with an intuitive interface to their facility will make the best use of their knowledge as well as keep them learning. type of interface is available and in use at TXU Energy. It is important for our central control operators because the more intuitive the interface, the

more they concentrate on operating procedures rather than "control, alt,For example, central control operators must know normal operating parameters at unique commercial buildings, manufacturing facilities, industrial plants, entertainment venues, hospitals, and educationalThey also must know how to use the monitoring system and react when a server is down to prevent disparate data. In order to streamline productivity, training, retraining, and develop a learning organization among operators, custom images are created to simulate the exact environment at each 1 is a graphical representation of an air handling unit actually located in aWhen the unit is running, the graphic displays the movement of air flow from the outside damper through the fans until itIf the supply temperature is not at the desired set point, an alarm will notify the operator. Without an intuitive interface, the first reaction to this supply temperature alarm not only could take longer than

necessary, but could also be wrong. In this example, operators can immediately glance at the surrounding measurements and discover within seconds that the root cause of the alarm is actually a malfunctioning hot water valve. more, is that an operator looking at the graphical display for the first time would likely come to the same conclusion - relying on years of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing experience rather than technical. interface that provides access into operations at unique locations, managing alarms and communicating with on-site staff is fluid and accurate. control center operators must react quickly to critical situations from as many as three different manufacturing brands of chillers and boilers with multiple product lines, three brands of generators with two different types - diesel and gas-fired - four brands of cooling towers, three brands of air handling units, and two different UPS systems. Back when the earth was cooling

before on-line training was available, individual training sessions would be conducted on each type of equipment. With an intuitive interface and a system that communicates with each type of equipment, adapting to frequent changes in operating characteristics is less troublesome than attending individualWeb-based systems can simulate the exact operational environment of any site thus creating fluidity in communication between central control operators and on-site staff. Figure 2 shows a panel from a York Chiller that is graphically displayed to the operator in the control center and exactly reflects the panel used by the on-site operator. communication between team members is streamlined. As a result, the conversation covers the condition of the chiller rather than issues that may develop from the on-site operator and the control center staff being in A system with such an intuitive interface of course does not remove any obligations toward continued

However, what it does do is enable experts in mechanical and electrical engineering to engage in continued education on the subjects that will take them to new levels of expertise in their fields. software development, networking, and communications targeting the building automation industry, understanding those activities will begin to play a bigger role in the learning process. The Internet is used for many activities and online training will only continue to increase. expensive, and less trouble for the end-user. Nikki Cuban is the Technology Marketing Planner for TXU Energy's real-time monitoring and controlHer background includes knowledge of home networking, standards organizations, and wireless communication. She has authored industry reports and spoken at international tradeshows. Evidence of her work has appeared on , as well as print publications. TXU Energy provides large commercial and industrial customers a full-range of energy, monitoring, and