ONVIF, a global standardization initiative for IP-based physical security products, has introduced the release candidate for Profile M. This draft specification standardizes the communication of metadata and event handling of analytics for smart applications. It paves the way for increased interoperability of IP cameras or analytics applications with video management systems, and easier integration with IoT systems.

Profile M provides a standard way of communicating metadata between edge devices or services, such as IP cameras or analytics apps for devices, and clients, such as video management software, network video recorders or server- or cloud-based services. This means that systems integrators and end users can flexibly mix and match solutions from different providers of analytics, edge devices and video management software or cloud services, together with IoT applications, into one system.