BCDVideo announced that all its video servers will ship standard with a five-year on-site next business day warranty from HP. This upgrades the previous standard three-year on-site warranty.
On July 2, 2012, Boca Raton, Fla.-based Tyco International announced that its ADT North America Commercial Security business unit — the industry’s largest security systems integrator based on the soon-to-be released 2012 Top Systems Integrators Report — will officially go by its new name, Tyco Integrated Security, effective immediately.
Emerging hosting approaches can include video surveillance as a service (VSaaS), remote viewing on mobile devices, virtual guarding, video verification, in the cloud solutions, remote storage and retrieval as well as fully outsourced management of a surveillance system.
I attended the 2012 ISC West show and came away convinced that while video surveillance has evolved as a centerpiece of our industry, we can do more to secure video from the emerging threat of cyber breaches. Today digital and physical theft is converging. Countermeasures involve video surveillance integrated with security applications, and the opportunity to protect video and data should not be overlooked by integrators and left solely to overburdened IT departments.
Internet Protocol (IP) networking “expertise” and cloud computing knowledge are areas that propel video surveillance and integrated security solutions to the next level. Moving forward, protecting information — and video images — will favor cloud deployments, as cyber security upgrades are automatic and failover and redundancy are best practices.
At ISC West I had the privilege to serve for the first time as a judge for SIA’s New Product Showcase Awards. What a fascinating experience! Not only was I able to watch each company in my judging category present their working products and describe them in detail, I also was able to learn from the other judges — consultants, architects, systems integrators — about what they considered to be the key elements of each product, and what would make them choose one over another.
While varying regulations implemented by local authorities can be counter-intuitive and cumbersome to keep up with as well as result in fines and extra expenses for integrators, more widespread regulations can also drive business for systems integrators.
Honeywell announced a new training and certification program to help integrators become proficient with the company’s Pro-Watch® Integration Kit, a software development kit designed to create smarter buildings that fold security into building management functions.