Software Upgrade
Today, technology changes so quickly and this is particularly true for BMS technology. Brandon has long tried and has a proven track record in providing our customers support for older BMS technologies.
Unlike our competitors who force periodic costly upgrades, Brandon does its best to support technologies as long as it is feasible. For customers under service contracts, we apply software, firmware and sequence changes as part of our service. With this said, from time to time major upgrades on the BMS software platform require configuration, development and programming to take advantage of new features. Sometimes feature sets require new hardware to take advantage.
The BMS Aspect Platform was state of the Art when installed. It uses a technology called Embedded Java applets. This technology requires the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome) to execute a program that runs inside of the browser. This technology was used for millions of web applications across the internet.
Today, given the extraordinary advancement in browsers, Java applets have become drastically outdated. They are also considered a security risk for any application available outside of a firewall and some browser vendors have removed support for these applications.
The software which runs these features is available “FREE” for all enterprise customers who are under service contracts. However, the upgrade requires re-creating all graphics, alarms, scheduling and menu navigation in the application. Unfortunately, there is no automatic upgrade for this effort and this work is very time consuming.
Brandon is reaching out to our customers and suggesting they strongly consider upgrading to take advantage of the new features. As a loyal service contract customer, we are offering extremely aggressive pricing for the upgrades which is based on size and complexity of the upgrade.
Advantages
| 1. | Faster Performance with enhanced Security available (Single sign-on, http encrypted traffic) |
| 2. | Access BMS for virtually any devices on any platform (windows, IOS, Droid) – (PC, tablet, phone) – Requires HTML5 compliant web browser |
| 3. | Significantly enhanced scheduling module geared toward ease of use for customers |
| 4. | Enhanced alarm management |
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The HTML5 platform has been available since version 2.5 of the platform. Today more than 2-3 years later the platform is at 3.03 and although new features are continually added, the HTML5 platform approach is tried and true and working at many dozens of Brandon Customers.
The existing screens will be copied almost identically to the browser look and feel. The navigation menu may change. If the operator does not choose to take advantage of the new “portal” features, the ability to get comfortable with the new interface should take no more than a few days of use once installed and basic training is provided.
No. Today the Java platform is still supported by the software vendor and browsers like firefox can run Java applet applications. With this said, there are so many advantages to performing the upgrade and not running legacy technology.
For some customers who’s web servers are older than a certain version a replacement web applicance is installed. Some customers may wish to upgrade to Enterprise versions of the software for higher performance. In general, for most customers no hardware upgrades are required.
The original Java version will remain side by side with-in the same application until the customer is comfortable with the new screens. Downtime should be less than 2 hours to install the new software and would not affect most building functions that operate a network layer below the host web server.
Our sales team can plug-in your facility into the cost labor calculation spreadsheet sheet and provide a quote. We are offering 2% financing for customers who wish to payout the upgrade fee over a period of 3-12 months or purchase discounts for net 30 terms. At the same time, if upgraded hardware is required (or not required but would provide benefit) these costs would be detailed.
