Dive Brief:
- Johnson Controls has updated its flagship Metasys building automation system to make it easier for facilities managers to configure, use and secure, and to deploy in mission-critical environments like hospitals, data centers and large campuses.
- “The latest release of Metasys delivers a … platform that ensures reliability, simplifies energy oversight and reduces reliance on specialized labor – essential for deploying across critical applications where performance and uptime matter more than ever before,” Kaishi Zhang, vice president of product management for building automation systems at Johnson Controls, said in a statement.
- In a key change, the platform expands support across large campuses or multi-site enterprises by enabling up to 50,000 objects and 1,000 IP devices to be connected per server, or 60% more than most building automation systems today, the company says.
Dive Insight:
Metasys acts as a cornerstone of Johnson Controls’ product ecosystem, providing integration across a range of building technologies to help facilities managers unlock energy efficiency, system-wide optimization and thermal performance, the company said in announcing the release, called Metasys 15.
In addition to new user interfaces and an energy dashboard, version 15 emphasizes scaling the system’s capabilities while ensuring reliable, safe access to system data and controls.
The expanded support for large campuses or multi-site enterprises can help organizations reduce infrastructure costs by eliminating the need for intermediary components and, with its new multi-server redundancy, ensure operational continuity, data availability and compliance, the company says.
Changes that make the system easier to configure are expected to save facility managers time and effort, and eliminate the need for server shutdowns or external support, the company says.
“You can configure spaces — and now equipment — over a browser with no toolset, outside technician or downtime needed,” Johnson Controls says in a product sheet. “Imagine, what once took 90 minutes will now take 5 minutes — an efficiency gain of 94.44%”
Additionally, the revised Metasys user interface will enable personalized browser views, giving users more autonomy. High-resolution graphs will help boost customization and clarity of reports that are generated, the company says.
The new version also includes ready-to-use applications in an energy dashboard that the company says can help users access and interpret the generated data. The dashboard and reporting feature provides real-time data on energy consumption and includes production details on various energy meter points configured within the system, which can be accessed through widgets, exported or created and scheduled as reports, according to product documentation.
To protect facility systems and data, the new version includes a cyberhealth dashboard with enhanced logic and updated security analysis capabilities that the company says can help operators manage risk and strengthen resilience. For example, facility managers can now identify engines running unsupported firmware, receive updated policy recommendations for engines using insecure configurations, spot vulnerabilities faster and make more informed decisions, the company says.
The focus on cybersecurity follows a broader industry trend in which organizations are recognizing that their building systems, and the vendors that have access to them, represent a growing target among cyber criminals. Bad actors are increasingly exploiting remote access by vendors to gain access to systems that sit at the nexus of organizations’ physical infrastructure and the network that’s used to manage them, according to a September report by cybersecurity company Claroty.
“A facility owner has roughly two to three times more full-time employees than they think, because those third-party contractors are as critical to their network as their employees,” said Sean Tufts, field chief technology officer at Claroty. “What [operators] don’t realize is that a technician walks from one building to another with the same laptop … and he can be a source, a weak point in our cybersecurity standard.”
The Metasys 15 update comes a little over a year after Johnson Controls released the previous version, Metasys 14.0, in September 2024.
