Integrating to Value
Posted on Fri, Jan 21, 2011
Submitted by Pelco by Schneider Electric, Gold Sponsor at the ASG Security Summit & Expo
Security executives are grappling with deploying integrated solutions in an environment of emerging standards and rapid technological change, and trying to maximize return on investment while dealing with constrained budgets. With all those factors in the mix, organizational roles and responsibilities for security and risk management are changing, too. Physical security, and its integration into other building systems, crosses multiple domains in an end user environment – facilities, IT, and risk management, to name a few. Each domain brings its own set of operational concerns and issues, which can sometimes hinder the teamwork needed for an effective total security solution. The good news is these challenges are being addressed and overcome daily. Here’s how we see it happening.
Technology Shift, Convergence & Integration
First things first – though it may be “old news” to readers in this forum, video surveillance is on the network, and it is here to stay. Video is the latest big business application to move onto the network. IT professionals have lived through (and driven) similar changes before, with IP telephony and videoconferencing. Customers have seen the ROI and improved operational benefits of these migrations. We see that once video surveillance is on the network, video can be shared by additional departments to provide real-time data that informs decisions, not just for safety and security, but also for operations monitoring, logistics, energy management, and more.
When customers want their physical security system to do all of these things, it is clear that yesterday’s video surveillance system just won’t cut it anymore. Video systems need to talk to other building systems. It’s no longer just about being able to “see bad things happening.” Video needs to be more intelligent in order to inform decision-makers, and ultimately, so that the video system can inform other intelligent building systems.
Standards
Ten years ago, deploying video was easy. We had BNC connectors. You just plugged in cameras and they worked. Customers want that same ease of use and deployment with IP networks. But as we all know, it isn’t quite that easy – yet.
In a way, the IP video world is in a similar state to IT networks in the early 1990s. We had AppleTalk, Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX), NetBIOS frames, and other networking protocols. It took lots of work to make devices talk to each other. We had a hardware-centric view, in which we referred to devices as “IBM-compatible” – whereas today our understanding of interoperability is focused on software compliance.
Today in IP video security, while we build and deploy systems that utilize a range of common IT standards – from IT architectures and storage schemes to video compression and more – we’re still at the bleeding-edge of standards that specify how IP physical security devices interoperate. Important work is being done by ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum), PSIA (Physical Security Interoperability Alliance), and other groups to provide common methods for video security and access control systems to interoperate seamlessly with other devices and systems.
Pelco welcomes the opportunity to work with other industry leaders, and we support these efforts as a contributing member to ONVIF, PSIA and other bodies. In addition, Pelco’s own commitment to open and integrated systems can be seen in the open architecture of our own systems, as well as our robust Partner First program, in which we’ve developed integrated solutions with more than 250 integration partners.
Increasing Value
Of course, it’s not enough simply to make it easier to deploy disparate building systems on the same network. Customers want systems that are easy-to-use and provide value to their enterprise. Toward that end, we are working on developing analytics that are not just glitzy, but rather, pave the way for more intelligent systems. That means developing analytics that users really need, improving ways for video data to be used as a decision tool.
IT professionals are aware of the concept Metcalfe’s law – the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users (or devices) connected to the network. In the same way, the value of a networked video system can grow exponentially, as more users are able to mine the video data system in order to make more informed business decisions. The increased interoperability of video means better decision-making not just for security, but also for building management, inventory control, process control, and more.
We’ll Get There Together
Of course, bringing all these benefits to an entire end-user organization requires not just interoperability of devices. It requires teamwork of end-user stakeholders, integrators, and manufacturers. This kind of multi-party collaboration and support has always been a hallmark of the Pelco approach to solution delivery. We are heartened by the work we are doing with industry peers in integration and standards development. We see that the collaboration of key leaders, in communities like ‘The Great Conversation’, will break down more barriers and build more bridges to success. It’s happening now, and it’s going to keep on happening, and we’ll all be better off because of it.