ASG's Security Solutions Blog

The Card: the Portal to Interoperability?

 

 By Ron Worman, The Sage Group

If a Security Executive sat down with his/her peers--executives who address such things as IT Access Control, Employee and Customer Parking, Cafeteria Access and Billing, Multi-Tenant Room Access, Asset Location and Identification and Employee Enrollments--what would be the common thread tying them all together?

According to Paul Kluttz, VP of North American Sales at HID Global, the answer focuses around the issue of interoperability and organizational value. "As executives, we have a great opportunity to network with our peers, listen to their needs, identify shared interests and create cross-functional solutions," said Kluttz. "One of HID Global's core goals is to provide technology in the form of a card and the reading technology behind the card creating a vehicle to continue to mitigate risk as well as drive meaningful value across other organizational departments besides security."

HID Global's role in ‘The Great Conversation' is encouraging the ecosystem to uncover the needs and develop solutions that create that value. "HID Connect is designed to help end-users ‘do more than open the door' with their HID cards," said Kluttz. "We can extend the use of the card from solely being a secured credential to open a door, to cost effectively and easily solve additional problems and leverage opportunities that were not available to organizations 10 years ago."

To Kluttz, the card now has the ability to provide multiple levels of secure authentication moving the notion of ‘single sign-on' from concept to viability. "The card represents multiple uses as well as multiple levels of security authentication," said Kluttz. "We have moved the PROX technology to a more secure platform, deploying encryptions within a secure container, partitioning within the memory of the card, and logarithms that are deployed based on the presentation. We have also created more efficient means to consolidate and protect through visual printing of the card, ensuring flexibility as organizations grow, merge and change."

Legacy technology and corporate budgets must be considered as well, so Kluttz, like many manufacturing executives is quick to point out HID's flexibility in helping security executives transition to the new technology. "We have focused on most organizations' two primary transition strategies: attrition and/or ‘phased' approach. With this, we have offered a hybrid card and reader line that allows the card to be used as PROX or as ‘Smart Card'. Using this approach", said Kluttz, "we can help organizations migrate within the context of their needs, budgets and lifecycle."

Kluttz believes the "Great Conversation" is a starting point to address the #1 issue of value: encouraging cooperation, collaboration and communication with manufacturers, integrators and consultants to promote cross functional organizational assessments. "We must show our clients that we can help them get to the next level by persistently pursuing a business assessment across all silos, searching for and applying value when we see it and helping define the shared interests of all concerned."

Visit HID at their Virtual Booth.