A BOS is a core platform integrating data from heterogeneous sources into a single unified interface. It's easy to say, but a few concepts and principles are necessary to understand.
Merging Static & Dynamic Data
Static Data
A physical representation of a building, an HVAC architecture, a metering hierarchy have all something in common, they are Static data models which is by definition information that doesn't change over time (apart from physical changes...). The static data models are very useful to understand the relationships between each asset of a building (spaces, equipment...). They provide insights to help any third parties (human or digital) to understand a building's philosophy.
Dynamic Data
In another world, we have various systems in the building that produces real-time data such as temperature, pressure, valve positions... Dynamic data is a value varying over time. Dynamic data is produced from BMS/BAS equipment (HVAC, lighting, meters...), from IoT devices (people counting, air quality...) and also from silos like access control, lifts or even third parties. Dynamic data can take the form of a primary values such as numeric, a boolean or be more complex (JSON, csv...).
A dynamic data is usually acquired from a traditional BMS/BAS protocol (BAcnet, Modbus...) or from APIs.
Getting a context
A Dynamic value has a very limited use on its own (it is just a value varying over tile). Most of the traditional BMS/BAS systems applies a simple label to a dynamic data (like a temperature) and displays it to a synoptic with the single purpose to provide a technical interface for a Facility Manager. But there are many applications out there looking for intelligible data from buildings to improve their service. It is really hard for a third party that get a data from a system like a BMS and to automatically understand which equipment it comes from, what kind of dimension it represents, what's its sub-values, where is it located in a building etc. It is usually solved with a lot of manual engineering and guess.
This is precisely why Dynamic Data are merged to Static Data into a BOS. It brings a context to the values, and from a simple value, it becomes a solid information to be shared with third parties (analytics, tenant app, CMMS...).
Knowledge graphs
Merging static data and dynamic brings a whole new representation of a complex system such as a building. It allows any third party to understand each piece of data without any knowledge of the physical system and replaces hundred of pages of documentation.
The power of hiding complexity
Hardware agnostic
A Building Operating