How to configure WinCC OA for multiple BACnet/SC networks with Primary and Secondary Hubs in a large building setup?

[Dhaval_Abotiyawala]

How to configure WinCC OA for multiple BACnet/SC networks in a large building with multiple hubs per floor?

Each floor includes primary and secondary (failover) hubs connected to a central building hub.

The WinCC OA manual states the BACnet driver supports only one network. Does it mean one server can communicate with only one primary and secondary hub?

How to design a scalable architecture for BACnet/SC with multiple hubs and failover with WinCC OA!

Looking for best practices and supported configurations.

[hpuchegger]

This interesting question was answered by our AI Assistant like follows:

The WinCC OA BACnet driver currently supports only one network, which means that a single server can communicate with only one BACnet/IP or BACnet/SC network at a time.

However, for large buildings with multiple hubs per floor, each connected to a central building hub, a scalable architecture can be achieved by using BACnet's BBMD (BACnet/IP Broadcast Management Device) concept. The driver can be configured as a BBMD for each subnetwork, allowing broadcast messages to be forwarded across multiple networks. This setup involves defining a BBMD for each subnetwork, which forwards broadcast messages to other networks, effectively enabling communication across multiple BACnet segments.

In practice, you would set up multiple WinCC OA instances, each configured as a BBMD for a specific subnetwork (floor or hub). These instances will create their respective "bdt_<network number>" files in the data folder, which contain the BBMD entries. The central building hub can then communicate with all these instances, which in turn manage communication with their respective subnetworks.

For redundancy and failover, each floor's primary and secondary hubs can be configured as BACnet devices with failover mechanisms, and the central hub can communicate with both, ensuring continuous operation.

In summary, while a single WinCC OA server cannot directly manage multiple BACnet networks simultaneously, a scalable architecture involves deploying multiple WinCC OA instances, each acting as a BBMD for a subnetwork, and configuring them to communicate with a central hub. This approach leverages BACnet's BBMD functionality to create a flexible, scalable, and fault-tolerant BACnet/SC network in large building automation systems.

https://www.winccoa.com/documentation/W ... ation.html

Regarding your question - one connection per driver (as far as I know) means that you simply could add more driver to your WinCC OA project which can each connect to one network.

Br, Herbert