ISC West 2013 and “convergence” have arrived. The vision of end-to-end security is a reality for the systems integrators who have rounded out their product lines, acquired internal skill sets, and strategically partnered to address it. The enabling technologies and price points are integrating end-to-end solutions and evolving security to new heights. Miniature sensors and mobile devices are the sophisticated endpoints driving unstructured data through faster networks and middleware to back-end storage and cloud architectures.
The security industry is evolving quickly from “image” to “individual” profiling. This entails a lot more information and integrates individual biometrics (images), with traditional background investigations (text), and now social media (unstructured data) for behavioral profiling. Think in terms of traditional video surveillance systems’ evolution. Historically, coaxial-cabled and stand-alone systems offered little functionality beyond local video image storage. Today, video surveillance over IP networks integrates with analytics software and PSIM systems. Moving forward, biometric authentication (fingerprint, facial/Iris recognition) becomes part of the integrated end-to-end solution.