Open Standards: The Key to Robust, Flexible & Future-Ready Security Systems

In today's rapidly evolving security landscape, the demand for robust, interoperable and future-ready solutions has never been higher. As organizations strive to protect their assets, information and people, the adoption of open standards has emerged as a critical factor in achieving these goals. But what exactly are open standards, and why are they so important for the security industry? Here, we delve into the what, why and the how of open standards for the security industry.

Open standards are agreed-upon specifications and protocols that make it possible for systems and technologies from different vendors to connect and work together. Within the security industry, this “shared language” allows security technologies such as video, audio and access control to interoperate with each other natively and deliver a robust security posture to the asset owners. 

Open standards within the security sector have been in existence for many years and are recognized for their role in facilitating interoperability among various security technologies and systems.

In recent years, open standards have been instrumental in helping manufacturers innovate, reduce costs and improve quality in a highly competitive international marketplace. This also provides security end users with the assurance that products and solutions meet a recognized level of quality and easy upgrade path as the technology evolves.

‘Plug and Play’ Convenience

One of the perks of open standards is that it is making security solutions “plug and play.” Open standards provide clients with the freedom to choose from a wide range of products and solutions, avoiding vendor lock-in. Interoperable solutions put the end user at the center of decision-making, allowing them to select the best products and solutions for their specific needs and budget.

Smarter Investment

When security products support open standards, such as ONVIF or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), most of the software development work is done upfront to ensure compliance with the standards. This eliminates the need for individual integrations on a project-by-project basis. This not only helps security integrators to deliver complete security solutions faster, but also reduces overall software development and integration costs in the long run. 

Systems based on open standards are more likely to remain relevant and functional over the long term, protecting the investment made by asset owners.

‘Future-Ready’ Security Systems

The introduction of standards over the last several years has allowed security vendors to innovate in ways previously not possible. Open standards provide a common framework that encourages manufacturers to innovate and develop new technologies that can easily be integrated into existing systems and experiment with it. This allows these new innovations to be used by a much larger audience as the technology migration is easier. 

From a security end user point of view, since the open standards ensure that they are no longer locked with a single vendor, it makes it easier for them to bring in new technologies or replace an outdated technology without requiring a complete overhaul of their existing infrastructure. This creates a more convenient path to adopting new technology as it becomes available.

Enhanced Situational Awareness

As the interaction between security technologies becomes fluid by being open, it increases the overall security awareness of the premise.  This makes it possible for security personnel to proactively intervene with a security violation. 

It’s important that security manufacturers prioritize compliance with the latest standards and dedicate significant R&D resources to the effort.  

Open standards present an excellent opportunity for the security industry at large, as they allow connectivity to other security technologies and platforms. Additionally, being a full member of ONVIF can help to actively influence the development of ONVIF standardization efforts.

Integrated Solutions Based on Open Standards

Open standards for communication technologies such as intercoms and IP speakers enable end users to add sound to almost any security workflow.

Within the security workflow, there are three phases: detect, respond and audit. First, you detect an incident and take appropriate action to eliminate the situation. Finally, you audit the situation for ways to improve in the future as well as for training purposes for new security personnel. 

In the first phase of the security threat, security staff need to have full awareness of a threat to be able to take the appropriate next steps. So, technologies such as video analytics and intrusion detection sensors are used for detecting security threats. In addition, having audio as part of your security system provides an added layer of threat detection and confirmation. 

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With an integrated microphone, intercoms and IP speakers can continuously monitor the audio level, and once it exceeds the threshold level, it can automatically notify a video management system over ONVIF. Security personnel can now not only see the threat, but also listen to get further context to the threat. 

The next step of the security workflow is to respond. Imagine a situation where security is monitoring an intruder over a video management system. Without an audio piece, they are unable to immediately respond to the situation. 

Using a single console from the security management platform, security personnel not only monitor the situation through a camera, but they can also dispatch audio messages to the scene remotely, either automatically or as a live message. Rather than waiting to send security personnel to the site where the threat occurs, we help to automate the security workflow over ONVIF and therefore, significantly reduce the response time and potentially eliminate the threat altogether. 

After the incident is the audit. As a property owner, you want to ensure the correct action has taken place during the incident. You should have the ability to view all events to get a better understanding on when security was aware of this incident and how quickly they responded. You want to hear the audio recording and the view video recording to get a better awareness of the situation. Once again, with the integration to third-party security platforms, video and audio from intercoms can be recorded, either manually or based on trigged events such as voice activity detection or a button push on the intercom.

Overall, the adoption of open standards that allows for interoperability is a critical factor in an organization to mitigate security risks and to protect people, assets, and property. It’s time to embrace open standards to advance the future of security and risk mitigation.