Crestron
e-control Vote SW-VOTE
10
••
Introduction
Installation & Reference Guide — DOC. 5822
100 MB hard drive space
133 MHz or faster Pentium processor
A f
aster processor is recommended for serving multiple connections
simultaneously
COM ports
Required to make serial (RS-232) connections to control systems (one
port per control system). (See Cable requirements below.)
Network Interface Card
Required to make TCP/IP connections to control systems.
TCP/IP sockets
(These are software constructs provided by your operating system. The
maximum number of sockets is operating system dependent.)
Server requires one socket per server–control system connection
Required for EtherNet control system connections only. The maximum
number of sockets is operating system dependent.
CNX Gateway (see below) requires one one additional socket per
server–control system connection
Cables
Precise CNSP-532 specs are
available in the Crestron Cable
Database.
Null modem cable, Crestron model CNSP-532 or equivalent
Required for serial control system connections only.
Warning: Do not use a generic null modem cable.
Auxiliary software
CNX Gateway
Required for TCP/IP (EtherNet) connections between the server and
the control systems. Not required for serial connections.
What is the Crestron Software Server?
The term “server” should not be
taken to imply a need for special-
ized hardware. Any PC meeting
the minimum requirements (page
9) will suffice to run the server
application.
The actual logic involved in the functions described in the previous section is not
carried out by the control systems themselves, but by the freely distributed Crestron
e-control Software Server.
This “server” is a software-only product which is hosted
on a standard PC running Windows
®
95/98 or Windows NT
®
. The server performs
various tasks which are beyond the scope of a control system. These tasks usually
involve access to and processing of large amounts of data (“large” relative to what a
control system is capable of dealing with), such as:
•
Exchanging data with large databases (which may be local to the server’s PC or remotely
accessed across a LAN).
•
Exchanging data with other computers via the Internet (such as e-mail; and mining data
off of World Wide Web pages; etc.).
•
Performing translation and report functions — and other complex logical functions — on
such data in support of specific application requirements.
The server consists of several licensable components which translate data in
application-specific ways and funnel the data to and from the connected control
systems. The bulk of this manual covers the specific functions provided by the SW-
VOTE component.
The data from the server appears to the connected control systems as “blocks” of
digital, analog, and serial signals. Separate “signal blocks” are defined in the server
for each function, each of which is reflected in a control system using
Intersystem
Communications
symbols. There are several standard types of signal blocks, all
