CHANGING OPEN BUT CHANNELS SECUREdownload.101com.com/pub/spo/files/0807_NCS.pdf18 CHANGING CHANNELS...

Where Physical Security & IT Worlds Converge

August 2007

CHANGINGCHANNELS

August 2007 Supplement to Security Products

SurprisedStorageByHi-res video poseschallenges for IT 12

Convergence writes new rule for distributors 18

OPEN BUTSECUREOne high-school’slessons with IP Video 24

PLUSBiometrics at Heathrow Airport 8

ContentWhere Physical Security & IT Worlds Converge

© Copyright 2007, all rights reserved. Network-Centric Security is a supple-ment to Security Products an 1105media, Inc. publication, and is published 3times a year March, August, and November.

The information in this magazine has not undergone any formal testing by1105 Media, Inc. and is distributed without any warranty expressed or implied.Implementation or use of any information contained herein is the reader’s soleresponsibility. While the information has been review for accuracy, there isnot guarantee that the same or similar results may be achieved in all environ-ments. Technical inaccuracies may result from printing errors and/or new de-velopments in the industry.

AUGUST 2007 VOLUME 1 NO.

Network-Centric Security welcomes vendor information and briefings. To arrange a briefing, pleasecontact our editor-in-chief, Steven Titch, via email at [email protected]. Our agreementto accept or review product material or backgrounders is not a guarantee of publication.

2EnterThe next few yearswill see a dramaticchange in the waymanufacturers struc-ture their channelpartnerships and thetime to prepare isnow, writes StevenTitch, Network-Centric Security’sEditor-in-Chief.

8InnovateBAA leads a team of vendors in anairport security trialthat links passportsand biometric data to speed travelersthrough check-in and boarding atdeparture and immi-gration upon arrival.

28LaunchNew applications,strategies andsolutions.

32ExitTrue convergencedoesn’t simply use theIP network as a wire.It becomes part of anextensible platform: aplatform to build newcapabilities and, in this case, enhance the physical securitygroup’s value to the or-ganization, write CiscoSystems’ Bob Beliles.

SURPRISED BY STORAGEBy Sharon J. WatsonCapturing a definitive identity on video and then storing thatvideo may seem like two distinctissues. Yet video storage is a criti-cal issue shaping how enterprisesmake the transition to IP-based surveillance networks.

18 CHANGING CHANNELS

By Frank BarbettaManufacturers are demanding fromtheir channel partners new qualifica-tions that entail technology efficacy,personnel training, education pro-grams and official certifications. Thebenefits that accrue to participantswho pass muster include customerreferrals, potential sales leads, jointsales calls, major project participa-tion, spot price breaks, volume dis-counts and capital financing aid.

24 OPEN BUT SECURE

By Sharon J. WatsonWith features ranging from a high-tech tufted vinyl carpet to special airfiltration systems to updated kitchenequipment, Jackson High School inMassillon, Ohio, was designed as astate-of-the-art education facility. Soit’s little wonder the new building’stechnology and security systemswould also be cutting edge.

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-ChiefSteven Titch281-571-4322

[email protected]

Art DirectorDale Chinn

Associate Art DirectorWendy Byle

PublisherRussell Lindsay

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SALES

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Barbara Blake972-887-6718

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Frank D’Isidoro908-252-6346

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District Sales ManagerMidwest, Southeast, North TX

Brian Rendine972-687-6761

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District Sales ManagerNortheast, AR, CO, LA, MO, OK, Canada

Randy Easton678-401-5543

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District Sales ManagerCalifornia

Ben Skidmore972-587-9064

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District Sales ManagerUK

Sam Baird+44 1883 715 697

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District Sales ManagerChina

Jane Dai. New Buddy Limited86-755-82925229

1105 Media5151 Beltline Road, 10th Floor

Dallas, TX 75254

Editorial services provided byExpert Editorial Inc.

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AUGUST 2007 | SECURITY PRODUCTS

12

6

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” That Biblicalwisdom also resonates for channel partners in today’ssecurity industry.

As journalist Frank Barbetta reports in “Changing Channels” (page 18), manufacturers are be-ginning to demand a host of certification requirements, personnel training and education as network-centric convergence calls for greater dexterity with IT concepts among installers and integrators.

“This technology shift is going to require security integrators to respond now—to devote all theiravailable capital, human and technical resources to learning a new core competency of IP design, inte-gration, deployment and installation,” says Tim Holloway, vice president-technology and security so-lutions at Anixter International Inc., Glenview, Ill.

Distributors, system integrators and installers should heed this statement. Convergence isn’t some-thing you can hide from. It’s not a buzzword that will lose favor in a few years.You can’t hope to side-step its consequences by invoking platitudes such as “we’ve always been a niche player.”

The next few years will see a dramatic change in the way manufacturers structure their channelpartnerships. Established end-to-end camera and video security system manufacturers, who havelong been a source of steady income for their affiliated distributors, are under attack from a spate ofbig-caliber IT companies including IBM, Cisco, Accenture, EMC and Microsoft. These companies,who have long worked in environments of open systems, best-of-breed partners, and ISO 9001 certi-fication, are forcing changes in the security supply chain. No matter what the history of your manu-facturing partners, the introduction of IT into physical security has pushed their customers’ expecta-tions up several notches. Tools, technologies and packages for surveillance, identity management andaccess control that fit client needs two or three years ago won’t cut it in today’s market.

Distributors and installers who do not embrace IT will find themselves falling behind competitorsthat do. New companies, drawing almost exclusively on IT talent, will make a run at your business.Vendors will start making strategic decisions about partners. Long-time rela-tionships will give way to the demands that convergence creates.

No one likes change. And success in the future requires managementcommitment today. Happily, most vendors stand ready with programs tohelp channel partners become IT experts, but they also expect initiativefrom you. That means retraining personnel to understand how to meetthe new IT challenges involved in physical security. For top level man-agement, it means setting an example by becoming familiar with thecompanies and technologies that are influencing purchases.

The task might be difficult, but it is far from impossible. ProTechSecurity Inc., which discusses its approach to convergence in Barbetta’sstory and is featured in Sharon J. Watson’s “Open But Secure,” a casestudy of a network-centric video installation at a Massillon, Ohio, highschool (Page 24), is one of the best examples of a small value-addeddistributor that is making the transition.

IT’s role in security is here to stay. The best way to as-sure your future is to answer its call.

New Rulesby Steven Titch, Editor-in-Chief

AUGUST 2007 | SECURITY PRODUCTS8

Open and interoperable systems, combined with newstandards for biometric encryption, have reached apoint in their development where network-centric so-lutions promise to make passenger identity authenti-cation less of a hassle for travelers, yet more fool-proof for security.

BAA Ltd., the company that owns and manages London’s Heathrow Airport, working alongsidethe U.K. Border & Immigration Agency (BIA), Cathay Pacific Airways and Emirates Airlines, re-cently completed a sixteen-week trial of an encrypted, networked biometric system, called miSense,that automates passenger identity and authentication from initial check-in at departure to baggageclaim at the destination.

Accenture, IER SA, Raytheon Co., Sagem Morpho Inc. and SITA provided high-level technologyand systems integration for the project.

The primary objective of the trial was to see how well biometrics could streamline authenticationwhile improving customer service, and to gauge if the public would be receptive to using biometric

technology, particularly in Europe, where past consumerstudies have shown a greater sensitivity to privacy. ThreemiSense services were studied: miSense, miSense Plus andmiSense All Clear.

“We wanted to remove stovepipes and improve the ex-perience of the traveler while increasing the security of thewhole process,” says Cyrelle Bataller, biometric specialist

in Accenture’s Technology Labs. “The idea is to identify yourself to the government, the airlines, theairport only once. That allows decisions to be taken at a single point. MiSense is part of that.”

“The technology is pretty sophisticated, but it is coming together,” says Stephen Challis, head ofproduct development for BAA. “The goal was to first see if we could capture people’s biometriccharacteristics, and test the fast recovery of those characteristics. We wanted to see how quickly afingerprint input could be matched against the data in the system.”

HOW IT WORKSmiSense is designed as a voluntary system travelers can use to speed identity checks. For the trial,self-service check-in kiosks were installed where passengers could scan their fingerprint and the pho-tographic page of their passport. The fingerprint was linked to the passport information and storedin the miSense database for later reference. If the passenger was checking baggage, their bag tag

Heathrow Biometric Security Trial Scores Big

by Steven Titch

The objective of the trial was to see how well

biometrics could streamline authentication

while improving customer service

AUGUST 2007 | SECURITY PRODUCTS

numbers could be integrated with the ID information.At the entrance to security screening, miSense passengers

used a self-service gate equipped with a fingerprint scannerand boarding pass scanner. Travelers first scanned their finger-print and if receiving a positive response from the miSensedatabase, were then prompted to insert their boarding cardinto the scanner. The data contained on the magnetic strip wasthen compared against an existing airport database to checkagainst a number of parameters.

If both scans were positive and matched (that is, the travel-er had enrolled at check-in and the boarding pass was valid) thegate opened and the traveler proceeded to security screening.The gate featured anti-tailgate sensors; a customer service repre-sentative was also on hand to assist if required.

Finally, immediately before aircraft boarding, airline staffersscanned the fingerprint of miSense travelers with a wirelesshandheld device. Once the data was reconciled against the miS-ense database, the terminal signaled an OK to board. If the trav-eler had tried to use the fingerprint scanner to board withoutenrolling at check-in, or did not use the self-service gate at se-curity screening, the miSense system would send a “no board”message to the scanning device.

All passport information and fingerprint biometric data col-lected was deleted at the end of the operational day.

miSENSE PLUSIn miSense Plus, travelers agreed to submit passport biographicdata and thirteen biometrics—irises, ten fingerprints and onefacial image. The traveler also agreed to undergo a compre-hensive background check. The checks themselves were con-ducted in real time against several law enforcement databases.Following examination by an immigration officer and on com-pletion of the background check, biometric and identity datawas encrypted on an RFID chip on a miSense Plus card issuedto the trial participant.

The average time to fully enroll a traveler was seven minutesand in some cases as little as three minutes, according to BAA’sreport on the study. The study’s goal of 1,000 travelers wasachieved with 1,007 people signing up.

The trial was the first to use international encryption stan-dards adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO). These same biometric encryption standards will be in-corporated into second-generation ePassports.The miSense Plustrial was a first look at the potential benefits the standard maybring both in terms of data storage and traveler experience.

The miSense Plus card also let travelers bypass long linesupon return to the U.K. For the trial, BAA installed a self-service gate equipped with a fingerprint scanner and a miSensePlus card scanner at immigration and passport control inTerminal 3 at Heathrow. In Hong Kong, airport authorities in-stalled a similar gate.

Circle 95 on card.

WWW.SECPRODONLINE.COM 1 1

“The card let you bypass immigration,”said a spokeswoman for nCipher Corp.,Cambridge, U.K., which, as a subcontractor,provided encryption technology to thetrial. nCipher’s Hardware Security Mod-ules were deployed in the miSense systemto generate and protect the unique crypto-graphic keys that were used to identify andvalidate each traveller based on their bio-metric information. “The card would speedyou through security with a special lane.Anautomatic gate scans your fingerprint andpassport and matches them.”

If both records matched, the gate openedand the traveler proceeded to baggage claim.

The biometric dimension provides a fur-ther security parameter, Challis says. For in-stance, passport inspectors must often dealwith travelers who may have grown beards,wear glasses or changed hairstyles. Theymust make a fast decision as to whether thepicture in the passport matches the personpresenting it. “MiSense Plus assures thename, the passport and fingerprint alwaysbelong to the same person,” says Challis.

Once a member of miSense Plus, travelerswere then able to use the gate at the en-trance to security screening during subse-quent departures and to use self-service bor-der clearance gates as many times as theirjourney arrangements permitted.

miSENSE ALL CLEARIn the third element of the trial, biographicdata from a traveler’s passport and travelitinerary were captured in real time duringcheck-in and transmitted to and processedby the BIA for background checks prior to departure.

The intention was to prove the conceptof real-time traveler processing, on a trav-eler-by-traveler basis, by carrying out pre-departure checks. For the trial, so as not toimpact airline or airport operations, no re-sponses from the BIA were returned to theairline (although this could have been man-aged with the configuration in place).

A total of 3,097 traveler records weretransferred to the BIA background check-ing system between February 2007 andMarch 2007. According to BIA, 85 percent

were processed in fewer than 10 secondsand 96 percent were processed in fewerthan 30 seconds.

CONSUMER ACCEPTANCEAs for consumers, BAA also found that 81percent of respondents in a post-trial sur-vey found the miSense Plus service good orexcellent. “We knew if we could produce a

clear benefit, people would be happy tosign up,” Challis says.

Challis says there is no timetable as towhen any of the miSense services will beimplemented on a widespread basis. BAA,which owns six other major U.K. airports aswell as Naples (Italy) International Air-port, is involved in several other IT-basedsecurity initiatives, he said.

See us at ASIS, Booth #313. Circle 96 on card.


SurprisedStorage

MEGAPIXEL CAMERAS BRING HIGHER RESOLUTION IMAGES, BUT THE HUGE AMOUNT OF DATA THEY GENERATE PRESENTS NEW CHALLENGES FOR IT AND SECURITY PROS

By Sharon J. WatsonBy

WWW.SECPRODONLINE.COM 13

“I am not a tech guy,” said Ken Haverlan, director for security, health and

safety at Middletown County Schools in New York. That’s why he immediate-

ly brought Mike Tuttle, the school district’s IT chief, into discussions about

a new IP video surveillance network.

Although Haverlan’s primary goals werecapturing identifiable faces and ensuringvideo was immediately available to first re-sponders, Tuttle recalls his initial question:“How am I going to store all this footageand for how long?”

Capturing a definitive identity on videoand storing that video may seem like two dis-tinct issues. Yet, video storage is a criticalissue shaping how enterprises make the tran-sition to IP-based surveillance networks.

As security departments replace VCRsand videotapes with digital recording de-vices, digital cameras and encoders totransform analog camera output to IP, theyand their IT counterparts quickly learn thatnetworked video generates a lot of data—potentially terabytes of it every day.

That’s data that must be managed, and ITdepartments are assuming the responsibility.

“When the data’s on our network, weknow how to get it, store it and back it up,”Tuttle said. “Ken relies on us for connectiv-ity, availability and troubleshooting.”

Security departments in some industries,such as casino gaming, can still make a casefor running their own networks and storage.

More often, as video networks evolvefrom closed circuit to IP, they become partof the existing IT infrastructure, althoughthey may be partitioned as a subnetworkor a separate storage area network withinthe security department’s purview, saidDick O’Leary, senior director for EMCCorp.’s physical security solutions in Hop-kinton, Mass.

Such convergence can be driven by reg-ulatory requirements or corporate datastorage policies, economies of scale andplans to make video data available to otherenterprise applications.

Further, choosing switches and routersand designing network storage topologiesrequires networking expertise most security

officers don’t have. Similarly, most IT pro-fessionals are not qualified to decide place-ment and angles for cameras or create ac-cess and use rules for them.

“You definitely need to work simulta-neously as one organization,” Tuttle saidof balancing IT requirements with secur-ity’s needs.

LESS BANDWIDTH, MORE STORAGEThat’s especially true because decisionsabout how much video to store, for howlong and where to store it can affect where,which and how cameras are deployed.

In general, IT and security professionalsunderestimate storage requirements, ven-dors say.

“Video will require less bandwidth andmore storage than they expect,” saidFredrik Nilsson, general manager for AxisCommunications-North America, head-quartered in Lund, Sweden, with U.S. of-fices in Chelmsford, Mass. He and othervendors estimate that storage costs run asmuch as 30 percent of a video project.

Though storage devices are steadily be-coming cheaper, video is data-intensive,and the higher a camera’s resolution, themore data it generates. For example, BoschSecurity calculates that a single cameratransmitting at 30 fps using the common in-terface format resolution of 704 x 576, or 4CIF, generates 11 gigabytes of data per day.Three hundred of those cameras recordingcontinuously would spew out 3,300 GBeach day, or more than 3 Terabytes of data.

Most users on a budget soon drop ex-pectations of running megapixel camerasconstantly at 30 fps.

“They would like to have higher resolu-tion if they could afford it,” Nilsson said.

SMARTER VIDEO COLLECTIONUsers can reduce short and long-term stor-age needs while still capturing critical videodata in several ways. First, some camerasand controllers are intelligent enough torun at 1 to 4 fps until they sense motion oranother event trigger, then ramp up in aneyeblink to a higher frame rate. These cam-eras can be deployed in less sensitive loca-tions, while higher resolution digital cam-eras running at higher frame rates are in-stalled at critical points.

Video compression technologies are im-proving too, reducing the amount of data tostore while maintaining image integrity.

“H.264 compression reduces file storagerequirements significantly,” said Mike Mor-per, director of product management forGE Security’s Digital Surveillance Video inCosta Mesa, Calif., noting that the industrycompression standard improves storage ef-ficiency by 40 to 60 percent. “It does thingsthat are smart for video streaming.”

Content analysis, done in smart cameras,video management systems or separate an-alytics programs also can reduce data vol-umes by determining what video data mustbe stored at what resolution.

“If nothing’s moving, you can dump 90to 99 percent of the data,” said StephenRusso, director for security and privacytechnology at IBM Global Technology Ser-vices, Armonk, N.Y.

“Move as much intelligence to the edgeof the network as possible, and you’ll havefewer bandwidth and storage issues,” said

In general, IT and security professionals

underestimate video storage requirements.

Leon Chlimper, vice president of systemsfor Bosch Security Systems, based in Fair-port, N.Y. As cameras and analytics on thenetwork’s rim get smarter, he expects usersto save bandwidth and storage by transmit-ting only video that needs to be seen.

WHERE TO PUT IT ALL?Many camera, software and storage ven-dors support the idea of moving video stor-age to the network’s edge. Security and IT

chiefs usually agree, say vendors. (See dia-gram and sidebar.)

“You’ll always have a need for storage onthe network edge,” Morper said. Physical se-curity departments like having data storedlocally in case the network should fail.

Local storage also offers users the flexi-bility to deploy some higher resolutioncameras without necessarily tying up band-width. For instance, Avigilon, a Vancouver,British Columbia-based maker of megapix-

el cameras, runs its high-resolution videooutput to a high-capacity redundant arrayof inexpensive disks (RAID) at the net-work edge. Clients using the cameras toaugment analog cameras may run an ana-log signal out of RAID storage to DVRsor, through an encoder, to a video manage-ment system.

In its edge storage solution, SteelboxNetworks Inc. uses a 3-foot-long cable toattach cameras from a variety of manufac-


Where and how IP-based video is stored has a big impact onan enterprise’s storage requirements. Instead of streamingvideo throughout a corporate network, most users are optingto capture and store IP video on the network’s outer rim.When video is identified as critical, it is then routed to a cen-tral point.

This tactic can be implemented in several ways. First,there’s direct-attached storage, in which IP output from acamera or encoder goes directly into a storage device like aDVR, an enterprise-class storage server or a purpose-builtstorage device with a redundant array of independent disks.

A second approach is network-attached storage. With anNAS storage topology, data from cameras and encoders isrouted to a collection point on the surveillance network, suchas a network video recorder. While a NAS implementationuses bandwidth on the surveillance network, it still segregatesvideo data from the corporate backbone.

A NAS looks like a file folder to a user or camera, saidJame Ervin at Stonefly Networks. That’s a potential disadvan-tage: many devices can store data in it, but it’s slower at re-trieving data. So for larger surveillance networks, a storagearea network might be the better fit.

A SAN is a network of hard disks devoted to storage, anal-ogous to a file cabinet with many files in several drawers, sostorage can be shared across devices and users. This flexibilityenables users to partition a SAN so that data from a particu-lar camera or surveillance area is written to a specific area onthe SAN, Ervin said.

Most SANs today are the province of corporate IT networksbecause they were created using Fibre Channel, a high-end datacommunications protocol. SANs based on the Internet smallcomputer systems interface (iSCSI) protocol could become pop-ular for video networks as more IP-based cameras are deployed.

That’s because iSCSI protocol works wherever IP does, soexisting equipment and servers can be used. “It lets you writeto a storage device as if it were connected to a server,” saidFredrik Nilsson at Axis Communications.

Eliminating the server reduces costs—another reason whyvendors expect iSCSI to grow.

Storage Alphabet Soup:Of DAS, NAS and SANs

One possible network set-up to minimize network traffic and storage requirements

Analog Cameras

Analog SignalAnalog Signal

Megapixel Digital

IPIP

IPIP

IP

Smart IP Cameras

IP Network VideoIndices

Video ManagementAnalytics

Encoder

NetworkVideo Recorder

RDBMS

SAN or NASArchived Video

RAID (DAS)


turers directly to its Digital Matrix StorageSwitch controller and storage appliances ofup to 16 Terabytes.

“We store it all and firewall it, so youonly get video on the network that youwant to see,” said Chip Howes, presidentand CEO for Atlanta-based Steelbox.

Bosch Security, Cisco, GE Security andIBM, among others, also offer storage de-vices that can be deployed on the network’srim. Other vendors, like On-Net Surveil-lance Systems Inc. (OnSSI) and IndigoVi-sion, run their software programs on off-the-shelf workstations to manage primary video.

“There’s no point buying an expensivedisk array for streaming video,” said GadiPiran, president and CTO of OnSSI, basedin Suffern, N.Y. OnSSI uses a workstation’sstorage capabilities to hold about an hour’sworth of incoming video for analysis; the

filtered video is offloaded to archival stor-age. This buffering balances the networkload, provided the user has sufficient serv-er capacity for the real-time video.

As for long-term storage, analytics keepvideo volumes manageable.

“We’re being asked increasingly to pruneand archive data,” said Steve Collen, directorof product management for Cisco’s physicalsecurity business unit, based in San Jose,Calif. He and other vendors say users wantintegrated analytics so they can make in-formed decisions about what video to keep.

For example, IBM analyzes video as itcompresses it to create metadata. Only this

high-level, descriptive information, alongwith a bit of the beginning and ending ofthe indexed video, is stored in a central re-lational database, Russo said.The completevideo described by the metadata is indexedand offloaded to a separate storage devicethat can essentially reside on any network.

VIDEO: BEYOND SECURITYAll vendors emphasize their open hardwareplatforms and application programming in-terfaces to ensure storage devices work withwhatever analytics and other security orbusiness programs an enterprise is running.

Open systems are important becausemany enterprises plan to integrate videodata not only with security applications likeaccess control, but also with traditionallybusiness-oriented applications such aspoint-of-sale analysis and training.

“The industry is just starting to see videoas data,” said GE’s Morper. He and othervendors say it is possible business users mightwant to use the surveillance network to studyhow customers behave in front of specificsales displays, to name just one application.

“As more digital video is deployed, peo-ple will come up with interesting ways touse it,” said Jame Ervin, product managerfor Stonefly Networks in San Diego, Calif.

Security chiefs might initially resist com-mingling security and business video, butcould find that’s one way to grow a biggerbudget and more support for their efforts.

CSOs can show operating and marketingofficers how the video infrastructure cannet valuable marketing and training data,said Jeanne Jang, IBM global leader in dig-ital video surveillance. “It’s beyond tradi-tional security, so other important playerson the management team can support it.”

Thinking about the potential business im-pact of video systems and storage does addanother layer of critical planning complexity.

“In this day and age, sitting down withonly IT and security at the table is a mis-take,” Chlimper said. “The systems can doso much more.”

Sharon J. Watson is a journalist based inSugar Land, Texas. She can be reached [email protected].

As for long-term storage, analytics keep

video volumes manageable.

At Middletown County School District in New York, storage issues had a definiteimpact on Ken Haverlan’s wish list. Haverlan, the director for security, health andsafety, really wanted to capture video at 30 fps.Then he hoped to store data for threeto six months to have the flexibility to address situations in which time went by be-fore an alleged incident came to light.

“Even if you only record when something moves in the camera’s field of vision,that takes a lot of storage space given our number of cameras,” Haverlan said. Thesystem encompasses 265 Axis Communications surveillance cameras monitoringeight buildings spread across the town.

So he and the district’s IT director, Mike Tuttle, agreed initially to store 30 daysof video data.To capture identifiable images, cameras in key locations run at 26 fps.Elsewhere, the routine rate is 6 to 10 fps.

In each building, an off-the-shelf Dell Windows XP-based workstation with 1.5Terabytes of storage collects video from the local cameras. Each storage server re-ports to a single central server, through which Tuttle can access their data. Becausethe network is Ethernet-based, he and Haverlan can access video from their ownworkstations, the Internet or handheld devices.

Tuttle’s ultimate goal is to have a storage area network to offload more videodata from the individual servers so it can be stored for longer periods. The SANalso would support multimedia data storage for classrooms and an access man-agement application.

The network backbone supporting the surveillance installation includes Ciscoswitches for power over Ethernet; the school district’s VoIP telephony system alsois integrated with the backbone. Being certain his infrastructure was secure andstable was vital.

“That’s been a real benefit when integrating other applications,” Tuttle said.Haverlan is satisfied too, noting that his staff has easy access to video data while

the new system is more reliable than what it replaced.“We’re having a good degreeof success,” he said.

Storage Effects


By Frank Barbetta

Anixter’s Tim Holloway, vice president of Technology-Security Solutions (left),and Don Hoffman, vice president ofMarketing-Distribution Products, review a video surveillance system.

CONVERGENCE

IS WRITING

NEW RULES

FOR VENDORS,

DISTRIBUTORS,

INTEGRATORS

AND DEALERS

ChannelsCHANGING


And by all accounts, the integration ofcomputers, communications and videoimaging will accelerate within many of theindirect sales channels as enhancementsprogress in digital cameras, broadband net-working, video management software andopen standards.

That has led manufacturers, distributorsand systems integrators to impose on eachother new sets of qualifications that entailtechnology efficacy, personnel training, edu-cation programs and official certifications.The benefits that accrue for participantswho pass muster include customer referrals,potential sales leads, joint sales calls, majorproject participation, spot price breaks, vol-ume discounts and capital financing aid.But the clear aim of these programs is topush third-party resellers and dealers toadapt to security and IT convergence.

Conventional supply chain strategiesneed to be restructured to accommodatecustomers, resellers and new technologiesand products driving the video surveillanceand security market, said Frank DeFina,president of Panasonic System SolutionsCo. of Secaucus, N.J. Its sister unit, Pana-sonic Security Systems, developed a multi-tiered supply chain structure that encom-passes manufacturers’ representatives, au-thorized dealers/systems integrators andauthorized national distributors, along with

the dealers who purchase through them.DeFina posits that the distributor chan-

nel has always been “a powerful go-to-mar-ket solution” for manufacturers looking togain access to a wide cross-section of in-dustries and to make products more readi-ly available to resellers serving the core se-curity industry.

“As video surveillance and security sys-tem design continues to shift to a network-based platform, the sales channels support-ing these systems also are changing,” DeFina

said.“Traditional security dealers/integratorsare facing new competition from several dif-ferent and formerly non-competitive re-sellers from a range of industries, includingIT, telephony, cabling and electrical contrac-tors. Additionally, systems designers and in-stallers must familiarize themselves with newtechnologies, such as IP, networking and soft-ware management, to take advantage of newsystems capabilities and interoperability.”

A NEW CORE COMPETENCY“In addition to a complete understanding ofthe products and technologies, security inte-grators’ ability to react quickly to the emerg-ing IP technology applications in the marketand meet the demand of their end users is es-sential to staying competitive,” said Tim Hol-loway, vice president of technology and secu-rity solutions at Anixter International Inc.,Glenview, Ill. “This technology shift is goingto require security integrators to respond

Converging IT and IP disciplines have made theirway into the once analog-only video security mar-ket, firmly establishing new criteria for businessrelationships among the industry’s traditional andemerging vendors, distributors, systems integra-tors, resellers and dealers.

NEW RULES:Panasonic Security SystemsFrank DeFina

Panasonic System Solutions Co., Secaucus, N.J., takes measures to ensurethat reseller partners have the expertise and practical knowledge to designand/or install its latest IP-based video surveillance products such as i-Pro, saidFrank DeFina, president of the unit.

Besides tech training, DeFina maintains the i-Pro certified reseller program’sobjectives include instilling competitive confidence for resellers and end usersin dealing with a company that is directly aligned with Panasonic.

“It’s a win-win proposition,” he said. “The program encourages resellers tocomplete certification so they can gain the resources and information theyneed to best support and service their customers.”

The certification process provides resellers with several advantages such aseasy access to Panasonic i-Pro network products and free education and train-ing through Panasonic Security Training University.


now—to devote all their available capital,human and technical resources to learning anew core competency of IP design, integra-tion, deployment and installation.”

The once-separate distribution channelsassociated with physical security and IThave started converging to the point thateach side is now aggressively seeking theother’s knowledge base and expertise on aregular basis. Eric Fullerton, president ofthe U.S. office for Brondby, Denmark-based Milestone Systems, said, “They dothis by partnering with each other, employ-

ing each other or educating each other.”One trend in IT has resellers looking at

video and control as a new industry.“The ability to help that market with

channel partners is important,” said JohnGaillard, president of security distributionat value-added distributor ScanSource Inc.

of Greenville, S.C.ScanSource’s value-add proposition to

the business includes “ease of doing busi-ness” measures such as Web-based tools foraccessing product information, assessingprices and conducting procurements, aswell as account management, consultingand education programs, the latter involv-ing technology, marketing and sales.

“We want to be more than a transaction-only distributor,” Gaillard said.

Scott Schafer, vice president of sales andmarketing at Pelco, a video management sys-tem vendor in Clovis, Calif., said their goal isto make sure their products can be sold andused by international reseller partners.

“We have to build the product the rightway and provide the training and supportbeyond the traditional CCTV business.How do we take these technologies andprepare ourselves and our resellers to takeadvantage of what’s coming up? This is a lotof what we’ve been working on,” he said.

Pelco also operates a special Web portalfor reseller education material and runs avideo security institute for training. Re-sellers of the Endura product line for majorproducts and larger customer installations,however, must be certified by the company;this is significant particularly because thetechnologies embrace both the Linux oper-ating system and Microsoft X clients.

“We cannot just give it to anybody, butthat doesn’t mean we can’t train,” Schafersaid. “The resellers have to make a com-mitment to the infrastructure and the peo-ple that are different from CCTV. Thereare a lot of things they need to do.”

COORDINATION LINKED TO GROWTHFredrik Nilsson, general manager of Amer-icas for Lund, Sweden-based Axis Commu-nications, indicated that sales channel coor-dination by this maker of IP network cam-eras, video servers and video management

NEW RULES:Milestone SystemsEric Fullerton

Since 2004, Milestone Systems has been making a distinction between autho-rized dealers who merely sign up and are approved to carry low-end productsand certified resellers allowed to handle high-end products. It currently hasabout 150 certified resellers and is looking to double that number within 12months. The channel is fed by a handful of major distributors, among them In-gram Micro, Anixter, TechData and ScanSource.

Milestone’s manufacturer partner agreements with the likes of Panasonicand JVC are aimed at developing the software features of the products, whilethe “solutions partners” program involves a range of companies using APIknow-how to integrate solutions and add value.

“We get at least one solutions partner application every day,” said Eric Fuller-ton, president of the U.S. office for Brondby, Denmark-based Milestone Systems.

NEW RULES:ScanSourceJohn Gaillard

Certification prerequisites are moving into the supply chain rapidly, accordingto John Gaillard, president of security distribution at value-add distributorScanSource Inc., Greenville, S.C.

“This can be a barrier to market entry, but it is becoming a needed to-doitem,” he said.

ScanSource keeps its line of cards to about 50 manufactured brands. Gail-lard said the company sits down with such core manufacturers as Panasonic,Sony, Axis and others on an annual or quarterly review basis to dovetail mar-keting, sales and support initiatives. The distributor also is operating educa-tional Web portals and organizing road shows to help resellers with the newerIT/IP aspects of video security.

Physical security and IT distribution channels

are converging, with each aggressively

seeking the other's knowledge base.

software is linked intrinsically to market-place growth. Its two-tier model involvesabout eight distributors funneling productto resellers and systems integrators, withsome of its big-name relationships beingwith Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Anixter, Se-curitas Systems, Lenel Systems Internation-al Inc., Honeywell and Milestone Systems.

“With distributors, the focus is on theirmarkets and their expertise to educate re-sellers and systems integrators,” Nilssonsaid. “Some distributors are from the tradi-tional security side interested in IT and IP,some are from the network side interestedin security, and some are traditional ITlooking at video as the new element.”

With a background in manufacturingand factory automation, Robert Lecher,owner and president of value-added dis-tributor RepLogix LLC in Shelby Town-ship, Mich., said his firm is leveraging tech-nology know-how into video surveillancefor production plants, the food processingindustry and utility market verticals.

Such applications as supervisory controland data acquisition (SCADA) for large-scale, distributed measurement and con-trol, as well as management execution sys-tems (MES), are intrinsic to the RepLogixniche business, and the company is seeing agood deal of action in the water utility andtreatment areas.

“A lot of security people don’t under-stand SCADA and the integration withMES,” Lecher said, suggesting a broadtrend of merging security, data collectionand plant/process/quality control is makingits way into the distribution channel.

Among the RepLogix video securitypartners are Milestone Systems, Long-Watch and Mobotix. Lecher maintains thatdespite the disruptive potential of IT andIP, the security business is generally hold-ing true to its traditional model of usingsystems integrators and distributors toreach end-user buyers.

DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPSLike several others in the business, Nilssonunderscores the key roles that open archi-tectures and application programming in-terfaces play in total market success. Thecompany also has an application develop-ment partner program that involves com-plete solution work; there are about 400ADP partners worldwide, including 100 ormore in the United States.

“Open systems and IP integration pro-vide the groundwork for true systems in-tegration and the ultimate convergenceand interoperability of all physical secu-rity and IT systems,” DeFina said. “It isimperative that equipment manufacturersand software developers across all cate-gories of security systems products—video, access control, fire and life safety—share protocols to ensure interoperabilitybetween systems and products from dif-


NEW RULES:PelcoScott Schafer

Scott Schafer, vice president of sales and marketing at video managementsystem vendor Pelco in Clovis, Calif., said his firm’s certification requisitesapply to distributors and resellers alike because Pelco wants certification con-sistency. Distributors funnel product only to certified resellers, which make uponly about 10 percent of Pelco’s estimated 5,000 resellers in all. Among thePelco criteria:

4Hire network and IT savvy personnel.4Have installers, tech support and troubleshooters on staff.4Meet a pre-testing stage on designer, sales and support expertise.4Pass 2-3 days of training classes.“We wanted no loopholes in our process,” Schafer said. “We continue to

expand with the right distributor and reseller partners, but we’re not out therewith a huge recruitment program. We try to coach and convince the moretraditional resellers about certification yet are being selective. Have we alteredour channels? Yes, but we altered ourselves also with a new IT, IP and networkfocus. A segment of our resellers have made the same choice, and it is anexclusive group for sure.”

NEW RULES:Axis CommunicationsFredrik Nilsson

Axis Communications resellers and systems integrators get access to vendortech and sales support, according to Fredrik Nilsson, general manager ofAmericas for the Lund, Sweden-based vendor. Nilsson said the U.S.-basednumbers have increased from about 100 such third parties in 2004 to morethan 3,000 at this time.

The Axis channel partner program is directed at education, training and cer-tification criteria.

“Qualifying resellers and systems integrators may be different, dependingon which side or sides of the business they come from, but all must have thetraining and education,” he said. “We don’t prevent anyone from selling theproduct, but the ones who qualify and sign up also get the sales leads andprice discounts.”

ferent manufacturers. Without this funda-mental level of cooperation, true conver-gence cannot take place.”

The Panasonic Solution Developer Net-work is a typical initiative; it provides aplatform for companies to share resourcesand encourage enhanced interoperabilityacross formerly disparate product plat-forms. At least 24 companies have enrolledin PSDN, with Cisco Systems recentlyemerging as a partner.

Milestone’s Fullerton echoes the corpo-rate message offered by the maker of IPvideo server/software platforms: the wholevideo security industry is moving awayfrom the vertically integrated proprietarytechnology of the CCTV era toward openAPIs addressing multiple vertical markets.

“What you will then get is an ecosystemof specializing companies in those marketareas,” he said.

The business has progressed from a pointseveral years ago when there were concernsover camera quality and bandwidth, but theintelligent products now are “winners,” andnetworks are faster, making installations of80 to 100 cameras or more commonplace,according to Art Morrison, operations man-ager at value-add distributor ProTech Secu-rity in North Canton, Ohio.

ProTech now looks only at IP and openarchitecture products, seeks out the appro-priate vendors, pursues IT training andstrives to be more IT savvy, as the industrymoves from dabbling with IP video tojumping into IP video with both feet.

“We are not really in the computer busi-ness, but guess what, we are,” Morrisonsaid. “The industry is now coming to com-panies like us with open arms; we are beingsought after. They need access control andvideo in the security mix.”

ProTech’s relationships have includedDell Computer, Anixter, Axis Communica-tions, Milestone Systems, On-Net Surveil-lance Systems Inc. and Berbee InformationNetworks, a Cisco Systems contractor.

Robert Hile, vice president of businessdevelopment at Adesta, an IT, network sys-tems and broadband integrator in Omaha,Neb., said leveraging his company’s exper-tise into IP-centric video security and sur-

veillance is an easy evolution, yet there arechallenges in product manufacturer selec-tions and sales channel alliances.

“We are trying to stay with products thatare openly integrated with as many proto-cols as possible,” Hile said. “This wholemarket is changing, and manufacturers be-fore didn’t always stand behind their prod-ucts. We are asking vendors to belly up to

the table. If they don’t do that, we will walkaway.And many systems integrators are be-coming more sophisticated and savvy. Theywant products that work and integrate well;if the products don’t, they’ll pass on it.”

Frank Barbetta is a journalist based inLittle Falls, N.J. He can be reached at [email protected].


NEW RULES:Adesta Robert Hile

Adesta’s contracts with end users involve manufacturers as signatories, andthe company is asking producers also to move beyond workmanship war-ranties into the realm of performance metrics guarantees, according to RobertHile, vice president of business development at the Omaha, Neb.-based sys-tems integrator.

“We are rapidly approaching the time where if manufacturers won’t sign, wewon’t use them,” he said.

In its total video security, IT and network portfolio, Hile described Adesta asproduct-agnostic, but it has close partnerships with Motorola and Cisco Sys-tems. It is a Cisco physical security authorized technology partner and a Cisconetwork segment premier partner, plus it is pursuing Cisco wireless ATP status.

“There are training and certification requirements, and we can share salesleads,” Hile said. “But Adesta has to make the financial investment needed forsuch qualifications and benefits.”

NEW RULES:AnixterTim Holloway

Anixter International’s READY! deployment services allow security integratorsto apply best practices in material management to lower their total cost ofdeployment, improve profitability and scale to the demand their end userswill place upon them, said Tim Holloway, vice president of technology andsecurity solutions.

“As a distributor, Anixter does not certify customers directly. We do, how-ever, offer an educational curriculum that focuses on best practices, industrystandards (on the networking side) and market trends affecting the networkingand security markets,” Holloway said. “For example, we offer a program calledAnixter University that focuses on IP and networking basics, video surveillanceand access control technology, just to name a few. Our National Seminar se-ries includes information on designing an IP-connected enterprise for varioussubsystems in a building, including voice and data networking, video surveil-lance, access control and HVAC.”


Jackson High School in Massillon, Ohio, as seenthrough Mobotix wide-angle megapixel cameras.Networked security for the $45 million state-of-the-art addition was handled by ProTech Security.

BUTOpen

The school’s existing analog video sur-veillance system definitely didn’t meet thatstandard. The school’s security officermade that plain to executives from Pro-Tech Security Inc. when they signed in atthe school to present recommendations forthe new building.

“We told him we were a video company,and he said, ‘This video system is the hard-est thing I’ve ever used and the imagessuck,’” said Art Morrison, operations man-ager for the North Canton, Ohio-based

company. Morrison was quick to point outProTech hadn’t designed the old systemand was, in fact, prescribing a next-genera-tion solution based on IP-based camerasand software.

The company had to convince not justthe security officer, but also the schoolboard and other administration officials.

“We offered our vision of the way IPvideo should be, which is 100-percent openarchitecture and 100-percent megapixelcameras,” Morrison said.


With features ranging from a high-tech tufted vinyl carpet to specialair filtration systems and updated kitchen equipment, the $45 mil-lion addition to Jackson High School in Massillon, Ohio, was designedas a premier, state-of-the-art education facility. So it’s little wonderthe school’s architect determined the new building’s technology andsecurity systems also would be cutting edge.

By Sharon J. Watson

SECUREnONE HIGH SCHOOL’S LESSONS IN IP-BASED VIDEO


That vision ran counter to the adminis-tration’s original thinking.

“They were inclined to stay with analogcameras and DVRs,” said Daniel McKimm,president of ProTech. But he and Morrisondemonstrated how using an open architect-ed solution, IP cameras and an NVR wouldlet the school add cameras to the networkquickly whenever they were needed.

“They began to understand the networkscalability right away,” Morrison said, apoint driven home because the old system’sDVRs filled quickly, making storage andretrieval difficult.

The administration also was intriguedthat the existing analog cameras could beincorporated into the new surveillance net-work by using an encoder to digitize sig-nals, McKimm said. That enabled the dis-trict to preserve some of its investment inthe older system.

IN WITH THE NEWThe surveillance network ProTech de-signed and installed at Jackson HighSchool uses a virtual local area network offthe school’s fiber backbone network. TheVLAN supports 62 IP megapixel camerasfrom Mobotix AG that are deployed at keylocations in the new 150,000-square-foothigh school building, plus a bus barn.

Images captured by the cameras arerouted to an NVR, a Dell Edge server boxrunning under Windows 2003 Server. Videomanagement software from Milestone Sys-tems analyzes the video and determineswhat data to store. That video is offloadedvia an Internet small computer systems in-terface (iSCSI) connection directly to aDell MC300 storage area network.

The system enables the school to usethe cameras as deterrents, as identity man-agement devices, and as eyes and ears forfirst responders.

“Mobotix is a security solution withvideo as its core feature,” McKimm said.

Because Mobotix cameras are IP-based,specific cameras can be addressed by otherIP-based devices, such as mobile laptopsand digital phones, so that security, policeand fire officials can see what’s happeningin a particular camera location.

Further, in a feature Mobotix claims isunique, its cameras also support two-wayaudio direct via session initiation protocol.That means first respondents can use IP de-vices to address a specific camera and hearwhat’s going on in a room. If appropriate,they could also speak through the camerato a room’s occupants.

“An IP camera can give first respondersthe ability to be there, visually and audibly,at the scene of a crisis,” said McKimm, aformer law enforcement officer and FBIAcademy graduate.

The open system offers convenience forusers, as well as increased security. For ex-ample, a secondary entrance door at theschool is routinely locked after a certaintime each morning. The door is monitoredby a network camera and a door intercomlinked with a Cisco IP-based phone system.If a student arrives at the door to find itlocked, he or she can use the intercom toreach the security officer on duty, who canconfirm the student’s identity via the inter-com, as well as with the camera’s visuals.

Cameras can be deployed quickly as de-terrents because they are IP-ready rightout of the box, Morrison said.

That was proven when the school’s busgarage was badly damaged by vandalswhile ProTech was installing cameras in thenew school building. The administrationdecided to add cameras to the garage, andProTech deployed them within a day.

Prices for megapixel cameras could be a barrier, according to

McKimm. “But it’s invaluable to get those tools to first

responders at a school or campus setting,” he said.

ProTech’s Daniel McKimm: “An IP camera can give first responders the ability to be there, visu-ally and audibly, at the scene of a crisis.”


BUILDING A BETTER NETWORKTechnical challenges for the new videonetwork at Jackson High included in-creasing storage capacity and retrieval ca-pabilities and greatly improving imagequality without bogging down the VLAN.The functionality of the cameras andvideo management software helped Pro-Tech address these.

One increasingly popular way to reducethe load on a video network is to put in-telligent recording devices at the net-work’s edge. Mobotix cameras do have in-telligent capabilities, but Jackson Highpreferred the greater searching and re-trieval capabilities offered by the videomanagement system.

“The intelligence here is all in the server,”Morrison said.

In addition, the school uses Microsoft’sActive Directory and wanted to integrateits functionality with the video manage-ment system.

The NVR is another critical piece of thenetwork.

“The server specifications have to bematched to what you’re trying to accom-plish,” Morrison said.

The first issue is how many cameras arefeeding data to the server and at what

frame speeds, which will determine the net-work load. For storage reasons, ProTechspecified using the same 8 fps rate on allthe cameras. With the cameras’ megapixelcapabilities, this rate still offers excellentimage clarity, yet a reasonable networkload, Morrison said.

A second consideration is how manypeople will be logging in to view the videodata and how. At Jackson High, the school

principal and assistant principals access thevideo from the NVR via thin desktopclients and Web browsers. A resource offi-cer from the local police department and aschool district-employed security officeralso monitor video.

Then there’s long-term storage. TheSAN easily stores 14 days of video, Morri-son said. The plan is to deploy a second

SAN to accommodate data from 40 morecameras to be added in the second andthird school renovation phases.

OPEN IS MORE SECUREAs former law enforcement officers,McKimm and Morrison are sold on thevalue of IP megapixel cameras for theirclarity and ease of use.

Prices for megapixel cameras could be abarrier, McKimm said. But it’s invaluableto get those tools to first responders at aschool or campus setting. They also counselsecurity and administrative executives tomake sure technology teams help map thetransition to IP.

“Even when we talk with a security offi-cial first, we won’t go any further until wetalk to the information systems people,”Morrison said. “We want to work closelywith the tech guys too.”

ProTech executives urge would-be IPvideo users to gain more security by keep-ing their networks and video solutionsopen. “Buy products that’ll talk to eachother via IP,” Morrison said. True IP com-patibility should make it easier to integratevideo networks into access managementsolutions and other applications that coulduse digital image data.

Finally, be sure to vet the capabilities of

the products, McKimm said.“We’re seeing a lot of companies come

out of the woodwork with product offerings,but they don’t know networks,” he said.

Sharon J. Watson is a journalist based inSugar Land, Texas. She can be reached [email protected].

The Mobotix cameras have intelligent capabili-

ties, but Jackson High preferred the greater

searching and retrieval capabilities offered by

the video management system.

ProTech’s Art Morrison: “They began to understand the network scalability right away.”


GarrettCom Inc. has added an industrial-grade PES42P Power Source Edge Switch to its grow-ing line of Magnum Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches that support clusters of IP video sur-veillance cameras or Ethernet-enabled industrial access control devices. The PES42P edgeswitch is designed to support up to four surveillance or access control devices as well as a fibertrunk back to a central control point. This makes the product ideal for applications such as traf-fic monitoring and control where up to four cameras at an intersection can be hooked to a sin-gle PES42P switch. This still leaves fiber ports that can daisy-chain with other intersections forhigh-bandwidth, secure transmission to the central monitoring point.

Using the same principles, the PES42P can support access control and video monitoring at awarehouse, and security for areas such as shopping mall parking lots and transportation termi-nals. The new PoE Power Source Edge Switch offers 17 different port configurations with a 48VDC power input for PoE and an outdoor temperature rating to address a wide variety ofapplication needs. Prices start at $690.www.garrettcom.com

Whether planning a new IP video system, integrating analog cameras into a network-based system or expanding a digital videosystem, Pelco’s NET5308T multichannel video encoder for its Endura video security system environments offers flexibility with-out the need to redesign the network.

The NET5308T is a high-performance, dual-stream eight-input video encoding unit, expandable to 16 video inputs, that optimizesuse of network switch ports. Ideal for applications with requirements for clusters of cameras, it converts live analog video signals intodual MPEG-4 streams of high-quality digital video at up to 30 frames per second per stream, all while occupying a single port on anetwork switch. This multi-channel encoder allows any analog camera to easily integrate into the Endura environment.

In addition, the NET5308T uses motion adaptive deinterlacing technology to enhance image quality when viewing images. TheNET5308T incorporates EnduraView video stream optimization technology to select the best image quality and frame rate for thetarget Endura product (decoder, workstation, console), all without affecting the system recording rate. For example, the unit selectsa high rate and quality setting for recording and alarm conditions and would select a lower rate for simple monitoring.www.pelco.com

2 GarrettCom Edge Switch

1 Pelco Multi-Channel Encoder


4 StarDot TechnologiesIP Camera

The StarDot SecureCam is a highly integrated 5 megapixel IP camera that sup-ports both a Power over Ethernet connection and a standard BNC video out con-nection at the same time. Other features include an automatic mechanicalday/night filter (for nighttime IR mode), DC auto iris and alarm triggers. Internalvideo motion detection can upload images or video via NVR, FTP or email. Imageresolution is adjustable and both 720P and 1080P HD modes are supported.www.stardot-tech.com

5 Mirapoint Email Appliance withEmbedded Policy Engine

Mirapoint’s RazorGate email security appliance with an embedded policy engineprovides enterprises and service provider customers with a more secure, scalableand affordable architecture for enterprise email. TheMirapoint solution’s unique architecture reduces totalnetwork traffic, reduces load on the corporate direc-tory and closes holes in the firewall.

Traditional email security products have to querythe corporate directory for each and every piece ofincoming mail to check whether the recipient is valid. Asa result, every single message, whether ultimately accepted or rejected, generatesadditional load on the firewall, internal network and the corporate directory.Mirapoint’s RazorGate with Embedded Policy Engine eliminates this problem byvalidating recipients autonomously at the edge of the network for each message.www.mirapoint.com

3 ioimage Intelligent Video Appliances

ioimage has introduced a line of intelligent video encoder/decoders that provideshigh-resolution video, constant bit rate streaming with latency at less than 50 milli-seconds. The new lvm series delivers exceptional video quality, optimizing bandwidthfor real-time video compression and streaming. Ideal for mission-critical, long-rangesurveillance devices, the lvm enables homeland security and defense organizations toeffectively carry out audio, video and data-link applications in which timing, qualityand bandwidth are critical.

The plug-and-play lvm encoders/decoders support high-quality bit streaming fromas low as 64Kbps, thereby enabling visual communication with remote sites at up to6Mb/s. The lvm series also is available with optional built-in video analytics.www.ioimage.com


6 Cieffe Chooses Pixim Chipset

Cieffe S.p.A. will use Pixim Inc.’s Orca chipset in its first composite securitysurveillance camera. Based on Pixim’s Digital Pixel System (DPS) technology,Cieffe’s composite CamPX complements its Nettuno CamPX network surveil-lance camera with Power over Ethernet (POE) capability.

Pixim’s Orca chipset enables Cieffe’s CamPX to deliver excellent images inboth normal and wide dynamic range scenes in any lighting conditions, 24/7.Pixim’s 720 x 540-pixel, progressive scan image overcomes typical impediments ofexisting analog technologies caused by variable lighting and limited color accuracyto provide positive subject identification.www.cieffe.com

8 Moxa Video Encoder

Moxa Technologies, a manufacturer of industrial Ethernet products, has intro-duced the VPort 351, a one-channel industrial video encoder that provides up tofull D1 resolution at 30 fps.The unit supports a dual MJPEG4/MJPEG algorithm,making it suitable for use with distributed surveillance systems in critical indus-trial applications. Two-way audio is provided for the convenience of real-timecommunication between system administrators located at the central site, and en-gineers in the field. In addition, a continuous pre/post event video record functioncan help system administrators determine why an alarm was triggered.www.moxa.com

Integral Technologies’ DigitalSENTRY (DS) 1000 is anMPEG-4-based digital video management system (DVMS)supporting IP and analog cameras. The system offers 16- and32-channel configurations, capturing five to ten fps. The DS1000 seamlessly integrates with any Integral DVMS througha single user interface. It supports the Integral IT softwaresuite consisting of network health monitoring, archive utilityand automatic online updates. The system also supports PTZcameras and other industry-standard devices, while theMPEG-4 compression provides a smaller file size with im-proved image quality.www.integraltech.com.

Integral Technologies HybridDigital Video Management System7


CCiirrccllee 9999 oonn ccaarrdd..

Bosch DVR Software

Bosch Security Systems Inc. has releasednew software for the DiBos 8 digitalvideo recorder. Software Version 8.21 en-ables the DVR to deliver crisper imagesand alert users to degraded video qualityor lost camera signals.

The DiBos 8 DVR now offers record-ing, live viewing and playback of analogand IP video at a higher resolution(4CIF). With improved video quality, se-curity personnel can capture clearer im-ages that show a greater level of detail.

The sophisticated tamper detectionsystem included in Software Version 8.21will generate an alarm if a camera hasbeen repositioned or if the video signal islost. DiBos 8 can also forward the alarmby e-mail, SMS, NetSend and the mal-function relay to ensure security person-nel are immediately alerted when videosurveillance is interrupted. The DVR au-tomatically displays camera alarms in liveviewing mode and logs all alarm ac-knowledgements and deletions.www.bosch.com

Information in this section has been supplied by the respective vendors. Network-Centric Securitymagazine does not accept responsibility for the

timing, content or accuracy of the product data or for the quality or accuracy of the photos.

10

9 Advanced Technology Video DVR

Advanced Technology Video Inc.’s Falcon FA-DR Series DVRmerges the processing power of high-end PCs and the functionalityof high-end embedded video recorders to offer a cost-effective,high-performance DVR. Features include a built-in DVD-RWarchiving capability. Users also can connect their own externalarchiving options via a USB port. Other features include video mo-tion detection, video obscuration detection, digital zoom and search.www.atvideo.com


IP networking adds value to physical security

Convergence is not new. The IT networking industry has experienced multiple waves ofconvergence over the past 20 years. And with each wave, convergence has delivered newcapabilities and some unexpected high-impact, even game-changing, innovations.

The ability to deploy physical security operations securely and effectively over an IP net-work has been available for some time. Factors that contribute include high-performancecomputer chips that can efficiently digitize and process analog video from surveillance cam-eras; falling costs for the digital storage of information, including video recordings; and awide range of fault-tolerant features that are an inherent part of IP networking.

Some of the expected capabilities of running a physical security operation on an IP net-work include access to information from a remote location, such as a manager’s home, viaa secure, virtual private network connection. This might allow security management to re-spond more quickly to a given event and coordinate with on-site personnel. New devicesalso can be used to access information. You might find it helpful to view video on a PC oreven a cell phone, for example, rather than on an analog display.

THE EXTENSIBLE PLATFORMBut true convergence doesn’t simply use the IP network as a wire. It becomes part of anextensible platform: a platform to build new capabilities, to realize new uses and to sup-

port new users, thereby unlockingthe true value of these systems—and in this case, enhancing thephysical security group’s value tothe organization.

Today, almost every businessand organization is concernedwith the safety and security of its

people and assets, regardless of whether those assets are material or electronic. Physicalattacks can target people and buildings; they also can be part of the theft of goods or otherassets. Of course, the job of physical security professionals is to stop those attacks.

Cyber, or logical, attacks have similar aims of harming business operations or stealing in-tellectual property.The job of IT security is to thwart those efforts.Thus, common goals andopportunities exist between physical and IT security, thereby helping to drive convergence.

When physical security is brought onto the IP network, it can strengthen both physical

More Than Just a Wireby Bob Beliles

continued on page 34

Convergence also creates processes

that encourage employee compliance

with security policies.


and logical security efforts. By tying physi-cal access and network access systems to-gether, IT security personnel can assertspecific policies for what, when, where andhow certain network resources can be ac-cessed. For example, a converged securitysystem can deny network access to an em-ployee who does not badge in when enter-ing a building. Restricted or classified doc-uments can be better protected if securityofficials can set a policy that allows onlycertain PCs in certain locations to accessthem. The system can be programmed toautomatically terminate a network connec-tion from an employee’s home if the em-ployee logs on in the office. As a result,physical presence becomes a network-ac-cess policy criterion.

CONVERGENCE CAN CHANGE BEHAVIORConvergence also creates processes thatencourage employee compliance with se-curity policies. For example, employeeswho must badge in upon entering a facili-

ty, even when the door is held open forthem by another person, will be more like-ly to do so if they can’t otherwise log on tothe network. Interestingly, this require-ment also creates the opportunity forsome subtle social re-engineering. Whilemany employees do not feel comfortablechallenging someone who may follow

them into a building without presentingcredentials, these same employees cancourteously hold the door and remind thestranger to badge in to avoid having tomake a return trip to the front of thebuilding. Thus, tailgating by all individualsis likely to decrease.

Through convergence, non-security usesfor video can significantly increase thevalue of an organization’s investment in asurveillance system. Video can be used to

understand customer behavior or alertmanagement to opportunities to enhancethe customer experience, for instance, byshortening check-out lines.

These new applications are only the be-ginning. Think about how your systems canbring new value to your organization. Askother departments what problems they

have. You might have a solution.We can debate about converged physical

security systems becoming the norm, butgiven the opportunities and benefits theyoffer, the question is when, not if, they willarrive. And, because of those benefits, itmay be sooner than most of us think.

Bob Beliles is senior manager of physical se-

curity market management at Cisco Systems

Inc. He can be reached at [email protected].

LINKSA navigational guide to advertisers & companiesmentioned in Network-Centric Security

Accenture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . accenture.comAdesta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . adestagroup.comAnixter International . . . . . . . . . . anixter.comAvigilon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . avigilon.comAxis Communications . . . . . . . . . . . axis.comBAA Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . baa.comBerbee Information Networks . . berbee.comBosch Security Systems . . . . . . . bosch.comCieffe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cieffe.comCisco Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cisco.comDell Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dell.comDIVR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . divrsystems.comDSX Access Systems . . . . . . . . . dsxinc.comEMC Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . emc.comExacq Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . exacq.comGarrettCom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . garrettcom.comGE Security . . . . . . . . . .www.gesecurity.com

HID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hidcorp.comHoneywell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . honeywell.comIBM Global Technology Services . . . ibm.comIER SA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ier.frIngram Micro . . . . . . . . . . . ingrammicro.comIndigoVision . . . . . . . . . . . . indigovision.comInscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . inscapedata.comIntegral Technologies . . . . . integraltech.comIoimage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ioimage.comLenel Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lenel.comLongWatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . longwatch.comMicrosoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . microsoft.comMilestone Systems . . . . . . milestonesys.comMirapoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . mirapoint.comMobotix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . mobotix.comMoxa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . moxa.comnCipher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ncipher.com

OnSSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . onssi.comPanasonic Security Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . panasonic.com/business/securityPelco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pelco.comProTech Security Inc. . . . protechsecurity.comRaytheon Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . raytheon.comRepLogix LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . replogix.comSagem Morpho Inc. . . . . . . . . . morpho.comScanSource Inc. . . . . . . . . . . scansource.comSecuritas Systems . . . securitassystems.comSITA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sita.aero/default.htmStarDot Technologies . . . . stardot-tech.comSteelbox Networks Inc. . . . . . . steelbox.comStonefly Networks . . . . . . . . . . stonefly.comTamron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tamron.comTech Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . techdata.comZebra Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . zebra.com

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