Echelon ISI - Manual (Page 10)

ISI Programmer’s Guide 8
Installing ISI Devices
ISI devices may support plug-and-play or plug-touch-and-play installation. For
plug-and-play installation, installation is performed by plugging in the device.
No user interaction is required in this case. This is suitable for devices where
connections can be determined automatically. For example, all appliances in a
home may automatically connect to a home gateway. If power line transceivers
are used, then the network connection is created by plugging in the device so no
other steps are required to install an appliance in the home network.
ISI devices may support plug-touch-and-play installation, in which case some
minimal user interaction is required to either join a network or create a
connection. The interaction may be with a user interface device such as a user
interface panel. Alternatively, the interaction may be with the devices
themselves. For example, the user may push a button on a device to create a
connection. This button is called the Connect button . Feedback may be provided
to the user using an LED, called the Connect light . A lighting system may have a
Connect button and light on each switch and each lamp actuator. In this
example, the user selects switches and lights to be connected by pressing the
Connect buttons on the devices to be connected.
On a simple device, the Connect button may be the same as the Service button,
and the Connect light may be the same as the Service light. In this case, the
same button may be used to join an ISI network, join a managed network, join a
connection, and to restore the device’s self-installation data to factory defaults.
More complex devices may require multiple Connect buttons and lights. For
example, a device that supports multiple manual connections to multiple devices,
may use multiple Connect buttons and lights that are not shared with the Service
button and light.
ISI Types
There are two types of ISI networks— ISI-S for simple and standalone ISI
networks, and ISI-DA for self-installed networks that support more devices than
ISI-S, more complex topologies, and unique domain IDs. An ISI-DA network
must include one or more domain address server (DAS) devices, and all the
devices in an ISI-DA network must be ISI-DA compatible. The DAS devices are
present to help manage the ISI-DA network. The protocol implemented by the
domain address servers is called the ISI-DAS protocol. The domain address
servers do not take on the full roll of network management servers. Instead, they
are only used to coordinate assignment of unique domain IDs and to maintain an
estimate of network size to optimize use of available channel bandwidth.
ISI Messages
The ISI protocol defines a standard set of messages that are used to coordinate
the installation of devices in an ISI network. The ISI engine that is part of the
ISI library automatically generates and processes most ISI messages. It is
sometimes useful to view ISI messages when debugging an ISI application. The
ISI Developer’s Kit includes an ISI Packet Monitor application that you can use