Patent ID: 8050801

Claim:
A building automation system (BAS) comprising: a system architecture of a building site comprising a communication network compatible with a plurality of communication protocols and having a dynamic extensibility capability and an automatic configuration capability; a server engine communicatively coupled to the communication network and compatible with at least a portion of the plurality of communication protocols; and at least one building subsystem control device communicatively coupled to the communication network, wherein the control device is known or unknown to the server engine, and wherein a known building subsystem control device comprises a portion of the system architecture; wherein the server engine includes: software instructions configured to implement the dynamic extensibility capability such that the server engine capability is extended to establish communications with and to control both known and unknown building subsystem control devices through the communication network, wherein the dynamic extensibility capability includes a proprietary extension layer which comprises a protocol stack configured to support the plurality of communication protocols, software instructions configured to implement the automatic configuration capability such that the server engine receives at least one characteristic from both known and unknown building subsystem control devices such that the automatic configuration capability determines if the at least one building subsystem control device is known or unknown to the server engine, and software instructions configured to expand the architecture to include in the proprietary extension layer at least one characteristic of a known building subsystem control device that was previously unknown to the server engine after implementation of the dynamic extensibility capability and the automatic configuration capability.