Patent ID: 8055386

Claim:
A building automation system (BAS) comprising: a plurality of real end devices each associated with at least one of a space, a system, or a subsystem for at least a portion of a building or a campus; a communication network communicatively coupling the plurality of real end devices and having a dynamic extensibility capability and an automatic configuration capability; a protocol-independent server engine communicatively coupled to the communication network, programmed to selectively implement the dynamic extensibility capability to establish communications with and to control the real end devices, and programmed to selectively implement the automatic configuration capability to determine at least one characteristic of each of the real end devices, wherein the at least one characteristic comprises a metadata descriptor of a relative state of the end device within the BAS; and at least one non-real end device, instantiated and defined within the server engine, including a dynamic value related to at least a plurality of real end devices, and associated with at least one of a real end device, a space, a system, a subsystem, a building, or a campus, wherein the server engine is programmed to derive the non-real end device from an algorithmic relationship based at least in part upon the at least one of the real end device, space, system, subsystem, building, or campus associated with the non-real end device, and wherein the server engine is programmed to redefine the non-real end device in accordance with the dynamic extensibility capability and the automatic configuration capability.