MSEA Device Interface - End of Life

3/22/2019

We discovered this past week that Johnson Controls is no longer supporting the Metasys System Secure Data Access DLL (MSSDA) at Metasys release 10.0.  This DLL is the primary component for communication in Events2HVAC's MSEA Device Interface. 

Here’s the link to the official document: https://docs.johnsoncontrols.com/bas/reader/lCnigiKzSle3WC5OZVPGxg/ySP2ulq5DR4Zm3ES8DqohQ

As a result of this announcement, we will no longer offer this interface to new customers.  We will continue to support the interface for existing customers at earlier MSEA versions or until all existing customers have transitioned over to BACnet.

Before upgrading to Metasys v10.0 you should talk to your JCI representative about the implications of this and how you can transition to a BACnet interface.

The workaround for this in Events2HVAC is:

• Update your license to include the BACnet device interface and re-install the Events2HVAC software to include the BACnet/IP device interface.
• Ensure that your JCI site has BACnet enabled and a BBMD device defined.  JCI’s devices (NAE, NIE, NCE) are native BACnet/IP, but it may not be enabled in some cases.  Talk with your JCI representative about this.  (See also:  Enabling BBMD on JCI Devices)
• Ensure that BACnet port UDP 47808 is open between your current Events2HVAC server and each BACnet device that you need to control.  Talk with your IT department about this requirement.
• Verify that you can view the devices and points in the BACnet explorer.
• Re-map all of your MSEA actions to the equivalent BACnet actions.  This will typically involve using the assigned BACnet device instance ID, point ID, and point type instead of the item reference name that is used in MSEA.  The action in BACnet will behave the same way as the MSEA action.  (See also: BACnet Actions)

The BACnet driver is used in the vast majority of our integration sites and has the following benefits:

• Follows BACnet standards so it would be immune to vendor-specific API breaking changes like this. 
• You can easily interface to other vendor BACnet systems.
• You can push exceptions schedule data in addition to binary state changes to zones for optimal start logic in your controllers.
• BACnet is much faster and more reliable than MSSDA web services.

See Also:

• BACnet Device Interface Help