SIA DC-03 - Protocol Driver Capability Overview
Description
The driver provides an interface to alarm panels that support the Security Industry Association (SIA) codes and which produce event messages formatted as described in this document. The DSC system III is a device which meets these requirements. Take care – The SIA codes are a table of two letter event codes and their meanings. Many security panels use these codes BUT they do not all format messages in the same way.
When combined with another protocol driver the security panel event data can be served using another protocol such as BACnet, Lonworks, Johnson Controls N2, Rockwell, XML etc. A block diagram showing potential connectivity is provided below.
This is a passive client driver – it waits passively to receive event notifications. It cannot poll for data – this means this driver cannot send a message to the panel to obtain the status of the panel or some device. A consequence of this is that the user must be involved in synching the panel and the data collected by this driver. For information on synchronization is provided in this document.
The driver allows new codes to be added and existing codes to be modified providing some future proofing.
It is possible to configure this driver to store some events and not others. When events are received for which no storage location has been defined then the driver will print messages and update operation statistics. This will allow you to ensure you are not missing the events you need to monitor.
Each SIA code has been allocated an (arbitrary) integer value. When an event is received, the driver extracts the SIA code, looks it up in a table and stores the corresponding number. It is your job to interpret these numbers (suing the table provided in this manual).
The driver can only be used as a passive client. Minimal active server functionality is provided only to support our ongoing quality assurance program by facilitating automated testing of the driver. This functionality allows the driver to send messages as if it were in fact a security panel. It is not documented or supported.
