Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/31496
6 NEWS www.securitysystemsnews.com FEBRUARY 2011 SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS Headed in the right direction Poll respondents say IP standards bodies still have work to do By Daniel Gelinas YARMOUTH, Maine—A recent poll on the work of the IP standards development bodies, SIA, ONVIF and PSIA, shows most respondents feel there’s still work to be done. Asked, “How do you feel the standards bodies have been doing on developing IP standards?” nine percent said amazing progress was being made. Nineteen percent said there had been no progress made at all, while 72 percent felt there was still work to be done, despite some progress made. “Standardization bodies are head- ing in the right direction but have not reached their destination of IP component plug and play,” said NICE Security Americas senior director, Training and Development Bob Banerjee. “The road that they are on does have clearly marked milestones and they are being suc- cessfully passed. But while these are useful for standards-adopting ven- dors to synchronize their respective R&D efforts, it delivers little to no realizable benefit to the end user or system integrator today.” Readers were a little more evenly split and doubtful in their opinion on the current ease of installing best of breed. Only 20 percent of readers felt it was easier today than a year ago to install a best-of-breed solution. “Best of breed have begun to integrate some of the standards,” said Salvatore D’Agostino who is with Brookline, Mass.-based IDmachines. “This presents an opportunity to use a common method of authentication across the enterprise.” However, some feel the effect of standards development on install- ing best of breed will remain a slow process. Bob Banerjee “One dream scenario is that I can take any compliant IP camera and plug it into my [video man- agement] system,” Banerjee said. “Standards specifications offer only the most fre- quently requested feature set—the lowest common denominator across all edge devices, so the VMS may not be able to leverage some unique edge device feature ... The world will keep turning perfectly well while standardization efforts gradually take hold.” Most preferred best-of-breed, with 60 percent supporting that option. The remaining 40 percent were split between no preference and prefer- ring one manufacturer. SSN How I Use My System Talking panels and keypads with Dwight Sears D wight Sears is president of Silent Guard in Somerset, Ky. The company’s been around for 16 years, and during that time Dwight and his wife Barbara have been building the business, trying out new security and HVAC technology (Barbara’s family owns Davis Heating & Air) in their home. Dwight spoke with Security Systems News recently and discussed the joy of being a guinea pig. Dwight, Barbara, and Taylor Sears enjoy having their home be a security/HVAC test facility. What kind of system do you use in the home, Dwight? As far as equipment, we’re a GE Security Pro dealer and have been for many years, so all our equipment is GE-based. Alarm.com is something we use pretty regularly, too. We have GE-branded video and we have that to where it’s networked into our system. Do you do a lot of security/HVAC networking? Well, not so much from the security side, but from the HVAC side, yeah. We’re always trying to stay current with the latest and the greatest technology. So we use our own home as a guinea pig for everything from both industries. So our home is networked, but it’s hard to integrate it all in since both sides are changing pretty regularly. How do you feel the standards bodies have been doing on developing IP standards? Do you prefer best-of-breed or one “Standardization bodies are heading in the right direction, but have not reached their destina- tion of IP component plug and play ... One dream scenario is that I can take any compliant camera and plug it into my VMS system.” —Bob Banerjee, NICE NEWSPOLL based on answers provided by 30 respondents in December and January manufacturer who does everything fairly well? So you personally test everything you sell and integrate? Absolutely. You have to know what you’re putting in. You can’t just go blindly into the technology. It changes so fast. The demands of the instant/mobile culture extend into every aspect of our lives today. We need to stay on top of all the new tech or we’ll lose out. The old, traditional alarm installer is gone. If we’re not up on the latest technol- ogy, we’ll get left behind. Do you feel end users are more sophisticated these days? Our customers are definitely educated about all this stuff, too. They keep up on the technology. They’re as advanced as the actual components themselves. They’re creative. They’re always saying, “Hey, can you do this or can you do that?” and we can say, “Well, yeah, we can.” And that’s a fun part of this business. Because the industry is becoming so evolved, it allows us to pretty much handle every customer’s wildest imagination. It’s an exciting time to be in the security industry. —Daniel Gelinas Untitled-2 1 1/13/11 9:24 AM