Rule-based technical management for the dependable operation of networked building automation systems

The ongoing integration of various devices and services into nowadays buildings as part of networked building automation systems (BAS) demands for flexible and dynamically adaptable system architectures as they are supported by service orientation, which, moreover, can provide suitable abstractions when integrating new technologies and systems arising for example from the Internet of Things. The increasing complexity of such service systems, however, is accompanied by increasing dependability requirements. Therefore a comprehensive and automated technical management system including service lifecycle management, dynamic (re-)configuration, distributed (re-)deployment, self-repair etc. has to be accomplished. Furthermore the management tasks and the required abstraction of the managed system should span a defined state space in order to enable formal verification of system characteristics like dependability. This work reports on a technical management system utilizing general and system-specific event-condition-action-rules (ECA rules) to enable the dependable operation of BAS. The management tree does not only serve as homogeneous management interface to the BAS, but spans in conjunction with the ECA rules the desired state space.