What is a zone?

Whilst each instance supports up to 16 targets, networking challenges often exist on many sites which may impact performance.   A zone is a configurable IP address that can be associated with a group of control systems.  Rather than an instance targeting multiple controllers, a single zone can be used.  This zone can be associated with an unlimited amount of controllers.  For example, it is typical to use a zone for emergency profile triggering of all controllers, site wide.

Use of a zone can drastically decrease the traffic generated by an instance (particularly occupancy and light sensors which send out updates extremely often).  

A zone consists of a label and IP address.

A zone must be set as an IP between 239.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255

Multicast must be permitted by the networking hardware, on site.

Creation of a Zone is done in Control System->Zone

After the zone is created it can then be assigned to any number of control systems through the zone assignment view in grid view. If a zone is selected for a control system and that zone already exists on the control system, it will switch positions with the current slot it is on. The only limitation of the zone is the target will be the same for each control system, that is, these controllers would have to have a common target, whether it be a group, address, system address or system variable number.  You can always target broadcast for the zone.

Once the zone has been created and control systems have been associated, the user is free to use the zone in the targets.  

When your zone is assigned to the control systems you can then target the zone from the targets view. You can then pick what type of target you want for the zone. In the options it will display all of the possible groups, addresses, system addresses and system variables. It will list the ones of which all control systems in the zone have that same value at the top. Below that will be ones that are on one or more control systems and how many are missing.