If you use the Niagara AX Workbench to connect to a Niagara station, expand the station in the Nav tree, and then double-click the Config component of the station, you will see that underneath there are two sub-components. One is named Services and the other is named Drivers. The Services component was described in the previous section. The section further describes the Drivers component.
The following image shows the Niagara AX workbench connected to a very simple station. Please notice that the station is located under My Host in the Nav tree. My Host is this tutorial author's Workstation (a personal computer). In fact, a station named NewStation is running as a separate program on the author's Workstation. The author is also running Workbench on the same Workstation. The author has connected from Workbench to the station named NewStation. Both the Workbench and the Station are running on the same Workstation.
Please notice that the image shows the station New Station in the Nav tree. It has an icon of a fox next to it (
). Under the station there is a component named Config. All stations feature this Config component. The author has double-clicked the Config component to reveal (in the main Workbench view area) the properties and sub-components of the Config component. The author has expanded the Drivers component by clicking the 
that is next to it in the main view area.
Below the Drivers component you will see all of the driver networks that are in your station. The NewStation as shown contains only one driver network, the Niagara Network, which will be further described later.
If you click the Drivers component in the main Workbench view or if you double-click the Drivers component in the Nav tree, the graphical interface that appears is called the Driver Manager. It provides more details about the drivers that are currently in the station. It also allows you to add new driver networks to the station. A driver network represents a field-bus and a protocol that the station will communicate through in order to access other equipment that is located across a field-bus, network, or communications port to which the station's platform computer is connected.
The following image illustrates the Driver Manager. If you click the New button on the Driver Manager then a window will pop up and ask you to choose which type of new driver network to create. There will be a drop-down list-box that contains all possible new driver networks. The list of all possible networks is determined based on the Niagara jar files that are present on your Workstation.
The external equipment is represented inside the Niagara station as driver devices, under a driver network. You can double-click a driver network to get more information about the driver devices that are in the station, or to introduce (add) new driver devices to the station. The interface that appears when you double-click a driver network is called the Device Manager. It looks similar to the Driver Manager but is customized to suite the needs of the particular driver.
A driver device represents a single unit of hardware, such as a building automation or industrial controller that is external to the platform computer yet connected to one of the same networks, field-buses, or communications ports as the platform computer. Driver devices usually feature a sub-component named Points. In Niagara driver-terminology, we call this the point device extension. As a reminder, all of this can be seen in the navigation tree by expanding the Drivers component, then expanding one of the driver networks, and expanding one of the driver devices underneath.
The point device extension component will ultimately contain one or more of the driver's control points. You can double-click the point device extension to visit the driver's Point Manager. The driver's Point Manager looks similar to the driver's Device Manager. Just as the Driver Manager allows you to review or add driver networks, and just as the Device Manager allows you review or add driver devices, the Point Manager allows you to review or add driver control points.
Each of the driver's control points represents one data value that is inside the corresponding, external field-device. Control points are special logic components (as previously defined in this document). This is how Niagara monitors and controls external, smart devices -- such as those found in commercial building control systems (for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, security, lighting, automation, etc), industrial control systems (for automation, etc.), and/or residential building control systems (for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, security, lighting, automation, etc.).
Niagara AX has support for smart devices that communicate over common protocols such as Lon, Bacnet, Obix, OPC, Snmp, and Modbus. Neither Niagara nor Tridium own these protocols. Furthermore, the names of these protocols are likely registered trademarked of their respective owners. Niagara AX also features a rich collection of drivers that allow stations to communicate to equipment that use proprietary protocols, such as Siemens' Staefa Smart II ® commercial series of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning controllers. Staefa Smart II ® is a registered trademark of Siemens.
The Niagara AX framework is an open architecture. It is completely extensible and allows Niagara AX enthusiasts to develop their own drivers for communication to equipment that might not otherwise be communicated with using any of the drivers that are among the rich, growing set of drivers available for the Niagara AX framework.
The benefit of this is that once you have a driver that introduces your equipment into the Niagara AX framework, you can inter-connect your equipment, through software (Niagara AX Station logic), with any other equipment that the Niagara AX framework can access. Moreover, you can create one or more web pages to provide access to some or all of your equipment, using Niagara AX, regardless of your equipment's manufacturer. You can also take advantage of alarming, scheduling, and any of the many other features of the Niagara AX framework.
All stations start with one driver network, the Niagara Network. The Niagara AX station uses the Niagara Network component to communicate to Niagara stations that are running on other platform computers (or to allow a station to be accessed by other Niagara stations that are running on other platform computers).
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