KODE Labs: Advanced smart building management delivers on promise of sustainable buildings
About KODE Labs
Founded by Edi and Etrit Demaj in Detroit, Michigan, KODE Labs provides its proprietary KODE OS smart building management platform to enable autonomous buildings, enhance comfort, and support sustainability initiatives in real estate.
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About MongoDB
Google Cloud partner MongoDB provides its fully managed MongoDB Atlas database to companies in a range of industries that need scalable, and easy-to-deploy database solutions.
KODE Labs uses Google Cloud and MongoDB Atlas to provide building owners and operators features that optimize the way properties are managed and help achieve sustainability goals.
Google Cloud results
- Enables rapid deployment of KODE OS solution in the real estate industry
- Makes real estate operations more efficient and sustainable by improving access to building data
- Supports an open and scalable architecture that speeds up the process of developing new features and capabilities as the building management market expands
Reducing infrastructure costs by 50%
Commercial and residential real estate markets have been transformed by new technologies that reduce the carbon footprint of businesses. With greater focus on sustainable buildings, property owners, operators, and construction firms increasingly rely on advanced software to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) and other sustainability certifications. Importantly, these efforts contribute to a healthy and sustainable future beyond real estate.
KODE Labs launched in 2017 with the mission of providing the most intuitive and easy-to-use real estate software that enables sustainability, operational efficiency, and comfort. By developing an open platform that integrates with all forms of building management, Internet of Things (IoT), and operational systems, KODE Labs unites the power of digital technologies to maximize their impacts on real estate.
“You can find countless use cases for digital technologies within a single building, especially when managers and owners want to use smart tools to operate more efficiently and sustainably,” says Etrit Demaj, co-Founder of KODE Labs. “We really wanted to offer a toolkit that would fit all of these use cases and help builders and managers tackle projects more quickly and efficiently.”
KODE Labs needed an easy-to-use, scalable, and interoperable infrastructure to meet the demands of its increasing client base. It recognized the need to manage, process, and analyze massive quantities of data associated with building systems. The company chose to work with Google Cloud and partner MongoDB to create and deliver a vendor-agnostic smart building platform.
“Scale and interoperability are the most important things we need from a cloud vendor. Google Cloud and MongoDB Atlas offer the perfect combination.”
—Etrit Demaj, co-founder, KODE LabsMaximizing the value of open source building software
KODE Labs entered the smart building software market with a key differentiator of being truly vendor agnostic, meaning that owners could send data into the platform from any source. To accomplish this, its smart building platform, KODE OS, would need to integrate with many systems, reliably capture the data, and manage it in ways that made it easy for people to access and analyze.
“Scale and interoperability are the most important things we need from a cloud vendor. Google Cloud and MongoDB Atlas offer the perfect combination,” says Etrit. “Before KODE Labs, most property management firms used one server for each building and sat on gold mines of underleveraged data due to siloed systems. An integrated view of diagnostic data was almost impossible to get. Google Cloud and MongoDB provide us with the backend power and scale to break silos and solve these problems.”
KODE Labs uses Google Cloud and MongoDB Atlas to provide clients with a single pane of glass that houses virtually all their software and hardware for their entire building portfolio. Rather than having 100 servers to run 100 buildings, KODE Labs users enjoy the scalability of the cloud to completely erase database and other infrastructure management demands while making better use of data.
“By having everything centralized on a cloud platform, we can build integrated modules for each domain,” says Gentrit Gojani, Chief Technology Officer of KODE Labs. “For example, we have a building management system that lives on top of a project management system, effectively unifying an important data source. This allows us to build tools like energy management that optimizes energy usage and enhances tenants' comfort.”
KODE Labs builds and runs its applications on Google Kubernetes Engine and uses Container Registry to organize and store its containers. Combined with networking tools like Cloud NAT and monitoring tools like Google Cloud’s operations suite, KODE Labs has the infrastructure it needs to maintain a lean team while serving an ever-expanding number of clients.
“Above all else, we chose Google Cloud because it aligns so well with our mission. Google is working to make the world’s information more secure, accessible, and useful. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do in real estate.”
—Gentrit Gojani, Chief Technology Officer, KODE LabsKODE Labs has had a positive experience working with Google’s Digital Buildings Project, which is an open source, Apache-licensed set of tools and schematics that assist in building portfolio management. KODE Labs was one of the first companies to implement it directly into its product, which provides clients with an even larger toolkit to optimize its portfolio’s performance.
In particular, KODE Labs uses Google Ontology as its primary data tagging model, allowing the company to normalize building data and apply machine learning algorithms on the data. These machine learning algorithms can further enhance the user experience and reduce energy consumption of the building. Without a standardized ontology model, this would not have been possible.
“Above all else, we chose Google Cloud because it aligns so well with our mission,” says Gentrit. “Google is working to make the world’s information more secure, accessible, and useful. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do in real estate. Google Cloud has also been extremely helpful every step of the way, guiding us through provisioning, use, and other needs as we scale up.”
On the data side, MongoDB Atlas provides a fully managed database that allows KODE Labs to effortlessly deploy new projects, infrastructure components, and more when starting to work with a new client or building out further projects with an existing one.
The seamless integration between Google Cloud and Atlas keeps DevOps’ focus on building instead of infrastructure management. Zero-downtime scaling and upgrades improve the overall application experience.
Going beyond the technology, “the MongoDB customer experience and support has been incredible and always available, making it possible to address any questions instantly,” says Etrit.
As MongoDB manages all database needs, the KODE Labs team can remain focused on innovation, client services, and other core business activities.
“Google Cloud tools and MongoDB Atlas provide for automation that enables us to optimize end-to-end workflows without ever worrying about scalability or downtime,” says Gentrit. “The advanced infrastructure reduces our IT costs by 50 percent, while giving us everything we need to provide our clients with exceptional experiences.”
“Everyone wants to be more energy efficient, healthier, and have modern places to live and work. With Google Cloud and MongoDB Atlas, we help building managers and construction firms deliver on these growing expectations.”
—Etrit Demaj, co-founder, KODE LabsSupporting the next generation of building management
KODE Labs is especially useful for property owners who want to make their buildings more autonomous. For example, KODE OS can be used to analyze a building’s energy consumption throughout the day and translate that information into commands that control heating and cooling systems. This enables a building manager to set a schedule at the push of a button that addresses both tenant comfort and building efficiency.
By coming to the table with a universe of data analytics tools, Google Cloud also enables KODE Labs to provide its clients with opportunities to monetize the information they generate and store. This offers yet another source of ROI for KODE Labs’s clients and partners, while advancing the spirit of an all-in-one building management platform.
“KODE OS is one of the few platforms that can bring together the data to make a building truly autonomous. It’s really only possible because of our use of Google Cloud and MongoDB Atlas,” says Etrit. “With data monetization, hosting, automation, and the enablement of open architecture for machine learning at our disposal, we’re giving our clients immediate ROI.”
Looking forward, KODE Labs aims to put even more data into the hands of building management professionals to improve sustainability. It believes that the combination of Google Cloud services and MongoDB Atlas will make this goal achievable. Additionally, the company is working to bring buildings online faster while creating new systems to improve interactions with tenants.
KODE Labs is also expanding on its KODE OS integration capabilities to allow builders to use whichever sensors and services they need in a more unified way.
“The beauty of open source architecture is that we can continue to evolve alongside the new client demands,” says Etrit. “Everyone wants to be more energy efficient, healthier, and have modern places to live and work. We’re excited for a future where KODE Labs, Google Cloud, and MongoDB come together to deliver on smart building technologies that revolutionize our experience of the built world.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About KODE Labs
Founded by Edi and Etrit Demaj in Detroit, Michigan, KODE Labs provides its proprietary KODE OS smart building management platform to enable autonomous buildings, enhance comfort, and support sustainability initiatives in real estate.
About MongoDB
Google Cloud partner MongoDB provides its fully managed MongoDB Atlas database to companies in a range of industries that need scalable, and easy-to-deploy database solutions.