Memoori talks to John Petze & Marc Petock from the Project Haystack Organization to Discuss 10 Years of Bringing Data Semantics to the Built Environment ahead of the Haystack Connect 2021 Event from 4th to 6th May.

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PROJECT HAYSTACK
10 Years of Bringing Data Semantics to the Built
Environment

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Making Data from Diverse Systems
Easy to Work With

3. The Challenge
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• Data produced by devices and equipment has poor descriptive
information to define what the data means
• Names can’t do the job
• Manual, labor intensive processes are required to add
semantic definitions to data before analysis, presentation and
other value creation can begin
• This barrier adds cost and slows the process of generating
value from data
• The Haystack community has been addressing this problem
by developing a standardized approach to “semantic
modeling” of equipment systems since 2011

4. How Project Haystack Solves the Challenge
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• Provides a standardized methodology for describing the meaning of data that
makes it easier and more cost-effective to analyze, visualize and derive value
from our operational data
– Built around “tags”: snippets of information that document attributes of any entity
that we wish to describe
– Tags work together within a data model to describe systems, devices and their
relationships in a logical, replicable way that is easily understood by machines and
humans
• Think of it as a “MARKUP LANGUAGE” for data
• Developed by a global open-source community over the last 10 years
• Deployed in over 30,000 facilities

5. Benefits and Value
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Owner/Operator Facility Management SI/MSI OEMs
• Faster time to
outcomes
• Control and
understanding of
information
• Data uniformity
• Common schema
between and formats
and data exchange
• Data interoperability
• Tagging in accordance
with agreed-upon
industry definitions
• Consistent data
throughout your
facilities
• Integration of data into
one place to deploy
common applications
• Cost-effective to
perform analytics
• Less time curating and
formatting data
• Simplifies workflow
when processing data
• Data portability;
repeatable across all
building types
• Common schema
towards making all
buildings smart
• Deliver value added
services
• Consistent and faster
data configuration
tasks
• Assurance of data
interoperability
• Unified data
communication
Anyone can use Haystack – open source, no cost

6. Enabling a Future Where a Push of a Button
Can Turn Device Data into True Intelligence
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7. Haystack 4 (2019 - 2021)
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• Based on a collaboration effort and 8 years of experience by the
worldwide community in applying Haystack across thousands of
buildings worldwide, Haystack 4 extends the model to the next level of
sophistication in semantic modeling
• Developed a taxonomy and an ontology to support the ability to
represent machine-readable relationships of things, their data and each
other
– Taxonomy - Defining the relationships of things; think of a classification tree
– Ontology - Capturing relationships between things
• Support for RDF/Linked Data
– Resource Description Framework - a family of World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) specifications for metadata data models – extensively used in software
development

8. Applying Haystack – Architectural Flexibility
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9. The Event
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Haystack Connect
May 4-6, 2021
A global virtual conference
FREE for all attendees!
www.HaystackConnect.org

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• Haystack in Practice - Success Story - Coster
Group
• Haystack Benefits in the K-12 Education Market
• Making Data Work for You – How Does Haystack
Help to Ease Concerns with Today’s Ever-Growing
IoT Movement?
• Analysis of Tagged Energy Data Via Machine
Learning
• Recognizing Haystack Permanence – What is the
Next Step?
• Applying Haystack 4 in a Residential Analytics and
Control Application
TRACK 1 - Haystack in Practice

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• State of the Union for Haystack 4
• Open-Sourcing a Comprehensive Haystack
Def Compiler
• Haystack Core TypeScript Library
• Update from WG#798 - Haystack JSON
Encoding
• Tridium’s Haystack Tag Dictionary
• Dynamic Integration in Digital Twins
TRACK 2 - Technical Track