Don Raymond – Innovation Starts at the Top
Don Raymond is one of our founders, our CTO, and a leader in engineering innovation at RLE. If you use an RLE product, Don has had a hand – or two – in its design. Don has recently been awarded his ninth patent, this one for the nesting and mapping technology that is included in RLE Falcon and SeaHawk monitoring systems.
What are the applications of the new patent in a facility or data center and why did RLE Technologies decide to pursue this new approach?
This patented technology has a wide range of applications in data centers and critical spaces. Users will immediately recognize that it is used to help them quickly and accurately locate the physical location of fluid leaks. But that only scratches the surface of its capabilities. Delta View can be used to show where environmental monitoring equipment – including temperature and humidity sensors – is located in a facility, as well as the current status of those sensors. You can use Delta View to mark hot and cold aisles in a data center. We have users that employ Delta View to visually demonstrate where their FMS units and other RLE equipment – and non-RLE equipment including air conditioning units, UPSs, generators, and other gear that communicates via Modbus, Bacnet, or SNMP – is located in their facilities.
A great way to look at it is this: the technology this patent covers allows users to have a single pane of glass to all the equipment and sensors in their facility. They can drill down from this top level view and get more granular information about the status of their systems, and in return all the alarms generated by the systems are pushed back UP using this technology, so they’re all available through this single pane of glass view.
How can the nesting feature that the patent covers better protect facilities than available products and existing methodologies?
This technology is included in the firmware for our monitoring devices – no additional software is required. Additional equipment can be integrated into the monitoring systems via protocols. We have eliminated the need for the software/cloud applications that other manufacturers require to do the same tasks. This means the view of the facility is available via a standard web browser anywhere, any time, without special software or cloud access.
We’ve received excellent feedback from our customers that monitor remote sites. These customers can view the status of their remote facilities at a glance. Before, they needed to be on site and have a printed map of their equipment and sensors to locate a problem. With this new technology, the facility manager doesn’t need to be on site to direct a technician to the problem.
Is this idea of “nesting” new to the market or is it the continuation of other monitoring trends?
The nesting concept is new to the market, implemented the way we do. We use the concept of a branch/tree system, and use hardware devices, not software, to interconnect the “branches” to one another.
What sectors do you anticipate adopting these new ideas first?
This is a great asset to our current channels: data centers, mechanical rooms, buildings, health care facilities, mechanical rooms, clean rooms, critical facilities, chemical plants, remotely monitored sites. We’ve worked to make this technology extremely intuitive and easy to use, and the mapping feature is really fast. Customers who are currently using Delta View have given us excellent feedback, and we get lots of compliments from customers currently using the technology.
This patent release is important because many of our customers have this feature available within the RLE products they currently own, but may not realize it’s there. I was visiting a site in Denver and helping a facility manager down there configure his monitoring system. I showed him the Delta View technology that was included in his system. He didn’t realize it was included in his monitoring device, and was really impressed once I showed him how easy it was to configure and use. I think a lot of our customers will feel the same way, and am excited to be able to do some customer outreach and expand the use and adoption of our new technology.
How does it feel to have your 9th patent accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office?
I’m a pretty humble guy – most of my friends outside of RLE don’t even know I hold one patent, let alone nine. Over the course of my career I’ve been fortunate to work with a team of engineers that supports innovative ideas and works to successfully execute on those ideas. I’m so proud that RLE continues to embrace this innovation.
Leave a Reply