Technical information

RMS Enterprise NetLinx Programmer’s Guide
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RMS Enterprise - NetLinx Programmer’s Guide
Assets
Assets (formerly known as 'Devices') represent physical devices or equipment. An asset can be a sophisticated electronically
monitored device such as a Video Projector or something as simple as a Flip Chart.
Assets can be electronically registered from the RMS SDK on a control system platform or in the case of non-monitored
equipment, hand entered via the RMS web based user interface. Assets that are electronically registered via the RMS SDK (and
Client Gateway) are automatically assigned to the default location assigned to the client gateway.
However in RMS Enterprise, unlike RMS 3.x, these assets can be moved to other locations in the RMS system simply by dragging
the asset record and dropping it into an alternate target location in the RMS web user interface.
Asset Types
Asset Types are a new categorization attribute associated to each registered asset record. Asset types can help group similar assets
with like behaviors and purpose together for reporting and searching.
Asset Parameters
Asset Parameters are the attributes or relevant pieces of information about an asset that you want to monitor changes on. For a
video projector this may be the power status, the selected video input, the lamp time used, and the unit's operating temperature.
Asset parameters in RMS can be configured to track changes over time and provide historical reporting data. Asset parameters can
have monitoring thresholds defined to send alerts or take some action (more on this in the next topic). Asset parameters warehouse
information about the device that is expected to change over time and that may need to be tracked and monitored.
Asset Parameter Types
Assets Parameter Types are a new optional categorization attribute associated to each registered asset parameter record. Asset
parameters that define a specific asset parameter type are defining that the parameter data provided should participate in some
special behaviors and usage in the RMS system. These are primarily used to classify a given parameter with a reporting content
type.
Examples of parameter types are "asset.power.consumption" and "asset.transport.runtime". Parameters with these parameter types
will have special meaning to RMS and these parameter values will be included in certain reports and other RMS user interface
elements.
Asset Parameters Thresholds
Asset Parameter Thresholds are monitoring triggers that can be defined either via the SDK or by the user via the RMS web user
interface. For example if the operating temperature of a device were to exceed a manufactured upper limit, the threshold could be
tripped and subsequently alert notifications could be sent out to notify the appropriate personnel.
Additionally, control actions can be defined in the RMS web user interface and associated with these thresholds to invoke some
action to a tripped parameter event. RMS 3.x imposed a limitation of one parameter threshold per asset parameter. RMS Enterprise
allows multiple threshold for each parameter. This enables the ability to perform escalating staged alerts and/or address conditions
that may require an upper and lower bounds alert condition.
Asset Metadata Properties
Asset Metadata Properties are a new feature in RMS Enterprise that allow both user defined data and/or programmer defined
information about a device to be registered and associated with device records. Typically this type of information is purely
informational and relatively static. Asset metadata property changes are not track or monitored. No thresholds can be created for
asset metadata properties.
An example of usage may be if a user wants to store a company asset number on each device, or perhaps wants to record a last
service data or service contract information. Asset metadata properties also support a Hyperlink data type so user can create links
for things like device configuration web pages, device online manuals, etc.
From the SDK perspective, asset metadata properties can be registered along with each asset to store additional informative
attributes about the device. For example, if you are programmatically able to interrogate the device and find things like a MAC
address or configuration information these can be registered as asset metadata properties and will subsequently be visible and
searchable in the RMS web user interface.
Asset Control Methods
Asset Control Methods are also a new convention added in RMS Enterprise. Asset control methods are intended to replace the
previous i!-ConnectLinx methodology for externally controlling devices on the RMS system. The previous generation of RMS
utilized i!-ConnectLinx because it was an existing convention and framework already established for externally controlling devices
on a NetLinx platform. However, the i!-ConnectLinx actions registered in a location were in no way related or associated to each
specific asset (device) that was being monitored. This disconnect is what prompted the advent of “control methods” in RMS
Enterprise.