Call now +44 (0) 1252 352 280
Glossary Of Terms
Terms and definitions used by REM.
- Administrator (User)
- The top-level user privilege set - no functions of REM ES are restricted. This amounts to the same as an Operational user's privileges, plus the ability to manage users and alter system settings.
- Alarm Event
- A system message that indicates that a monitored parameter has exceeded an Alarm Point.
- Alarm Point
- Values at which an Alarm or Clear Event is generated by the system. Thresholds are set for Critical Low (low reading Alarm), Warning Low (low reading Pre Alarm), Warning High (high reading Pre Alarm), Critical High (high reading Alarm), Rate of Change Warning (Rate of Change Pre Alarm) and Rate of Change Critical (Rate of Change Alarm). Thresholds are not sensor, vendor or hardware specific, but apply to Gross Types.
- Alarm Point Profile
- Records of acceptable rate of change, Thresholds and Severities applied to the readings received by the REM-ES. These profiles can be applied to the appropriate sensors on an individual level, or by groups up to the entire network.
- Appliance
- A combined hardware and software solution, with a dedicated task.
- Clear Event
- An event indicating that a previous alarm has been resolved and that the condition that caused it is no longer present.
- Commission
- Adding a device to the topology does not automatically cause it to be monitored and alarmed on. Devices may be deployed in the Estate at a different time, earlier or later, to when they are added to REM ES's understanding of the Estate. Thus a device can be in either a Commissioned or Decommissioned state. Commissioned devices are alarmed on and it is checked that they are alive. Decommissioned devices are known about, but neither monitored for health nor alarmed on - any readings they send are ignored. This allows a large set of devices to be configured fully before they are put live, ie commissioned, and allows devices to be decommissioned for hardware swaps, or to deal with known problems such as network maintenance, without producing unwanted alarms.
- Dashboard
- The graphical display of the whole Estate’s general health, using colours to give a quick and easy to understand representation of the complex Environmental Monitoring data.
- Decommission
- Devices can be set into a non-active, or decommissioned state, for maintenance or to cope with problems external to the sensor network causing unwanted alarms. Essentially this is a way to tell REM ES to ignore a device but without losing its existing history or settings. To re-enable the device, it should be commissioned.
- Device
- Remote hardware, connected via a network, that sends readings related to its Environment to the REM-ES system. These devices are termed Sensors, Probes, Hubs or Interfaces within the software, but one piece of hardware may in fact be multiple devices in a single enclosure, for example an I-Box, Netbotz, Hawk-i2, etc.
- Device Status
- A record of the present state of all the devices connected to the REM-ES, in real time.
- Environment
- Physical conditions and forces in a known place. This includes temperature, humidity, voltage, current, vibration, pressure, movement, stress, etc.
- Event View
- A list, within the Dashboard, of Alarm and Clear Event records, ordered by time and coloured by Severity.
- Fast Change
- This is a type of Event generated by the system if a physical reading varies by an unusually large amount in a small space of time, and often indicates a change in Trend of something monitored. For example, a Fast Change might occur when a temperature increases too fast, but is still below the alarm Thresholds, giving an early warning that there is a problem. This is especially useful if a reading often varies slowly, and approaches a Threshold as a normal course of operating, for example daily temperature variations.
- Geography
- An associated collection of Cities, Buildings, Rooms and Cabinets. Devices all have an association with a part of the geography structure.
- Gross Type
- This is the name given to broad categories of sensors, such as temperature or voltage. These categories are used in the creation of Alarm Point Profiles - each profile applies to one or more Gross Types. They exist to avoid having to handle different vendors' sensors differently when configuring thresholds.
- Help Desk (User)
- A read-only user, who can view the Estate topology, view the Dashboard, click on events to see more detail and see sensor histories.
- Hub (Device)
- An electronic device, for connecting probes to interfaces. The server communicates with the Hub via the Interface.
- Interface (Device)
- The hardware device that allows communication between the server and a monitoring device Hub, usually across a wired Ethernet network.
- Listener
- A software module that translates data from remote devices into Events. Each listener has a specific purpose, such as integrating with one particular hardware manufacturers devices.
- Log Rate
- The recording interval for sensors that are operating within normal limits.
- MIB
- Management Information Base – Contains information on the creation and interpretation of data sent and received via the SNMP protocol.
- Modbus
- A protocol widely used in industry for control and monitoring. Modbus is the most commonly available means of connecting industrial electronic devices which contain programmable logic controllers (PLC's).
- NMS
- Network Management System/Network Monitoring System. 3rd party hardware and software solution that indicate the state of an enterprise’s networks, highlighting faults and problems.
- Operational (User)
- A read-write user, who has all the Help Desk user's privileges and can also edit the topology, zones, profiles and senders. This user level can also view the system settings.
- Port (Device)
- A Physical or Logical connection between two Device entities. A Hub will be connected to a Port on an Interface, a Probe is connected to a Port on a Hub, and a Sensor is connected to a Port on a Probe. Each Interface, Hub or Probe may have multiple Ports.
- PreAlarm
- An Event, usually with Severity of Warning, which indicates that a reading is approaching a Critical Threshold.
- Probe (Device)
- An electronic device which connects sensors to hubs (and may be integrated into hubs). The probe translates the readings from a Sensor into a signal the Hub will understand. For this reason, most probes are sensor specific.
- Sender
- A software module that converts Events into messages formatted for external systems, such as SMS, Email or NMS systems.
- Sensor (Device)
- Usually an electrical or electronic device which measures a quantity, and generates an output value that can be related to the quantity measured. Some sensors may in fact be ‘virtual’, where a reading is calculated from other sensor readings (for example many dew point or air flow sensors).
- Sensor Node
- A chargeable element of the REM Enterprise Server licence agreement. Each sensor node is a device capable of communicating to REM via IP networking. For example, an AxxessID iBox, APC Netbotz 500 and Sinetica Hawk-i2 are all sensor nodes.
- Severity
- REM ES allows events of different kinds, such as temperature Alarms or a sensor ceasing to report, to be assigned a severity. They range between 0 (Clear) and 5 (Critical). Alarm Point Profiles assign the severities for a sensor reading which exceeds the configured thresholds. Others are fixed within REM ES. They determine the colour of an event on the Event View and are passed on in any messages emitted by REM ES to an NMS or other recipient.
- SMTP
- Simple Mail Transport Protocol, or “How E-mail is sent”.
- SNMP
- Simple Network Management Protocol. A standard networking Protocol, which passes data, alarms and configuration between systems.
- Threshold
- Values at which an Alarm or Clear Event is generated by the system. Thresholds are set for Critical Low (low reading Alarm), Warning Low (low reading Pre Alarm), Warning High (high reading Pre Alarm), Critical High (high reading Alarm), Rate of Change Warning (Rate of Change Pre Alarm) and Rate of Change Critical (Rate of Change Alarm). Thresholds are not sensor, vendor or hardware specific, but apply to Gross Types.
- Topology
- The arrangement of Geography and Devices. This is a tree like structure, with each device being in a location. Devices may be placed in Towns/Cities, Buildings, Rooms or Cabinets.
- Trap
- A type of SNMP message, sent to the server by a remote device.
- User
- REM ES has user configuration to control access to its functionality. There are three levels are access, Help Desk, Operational and Administrator, essentially read-only, read-write and full privileges.
- Zone
- The concept of grouping together parts of the Estate so that data can be most appropriately routed. A zone may contain all or just a subset of sensors in a region and sensors may be members of many zones.