The Open Standards Security Alliance (OSSA) hosted the 46th Video Security & Integration Summit (VSI) at the Hilton Chicago hotel on Nov. 9. The seminar, titled “Truly Open,” was designed to educate end-users and the architect and engineer community on truly open architecture and the issues with proprietary implementations of open standards. In addition to the end-user and A&E groups, roughly a third of attendees were systems integrators and value-added resellers, making for a diverse crowd and an interesting Q&A session.

Presenters from sponsor companies Axis Communications, Cisco, Hirsch Electronics, Intergraph and Sightlogix explained and demonstrated technologies that allow for an open, scalable, retrofit friendly security system, highlighting increased functionality made possible by the interconnectivity and communication capabilities of IP-based technologies. In order to illustrate real-life challenges and applications, the presentations described how the elements of video capture, video analytics, video management, access control and the software that incorporates those elements into one "common operating picture" function in a seaport vertical.

One point of focus was dispelling myths about open standard compliance.  As Robert Muehlbauer, business development manager, Axis Communications Inc. noted, building a future-proof system requires maintaining compliance with popular protocols, and “99 percent compliance means no compliance.”