Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/40004
20 SPECIAL REPORT www.securitysystemsnews.com SEPTEMBER 2011 Security at the WTC Continued from page 1 Sept. 11 opening of the memorial site approaching, longer days along with unof- ficial dinner and breakfast meetings are increasingly common. "Normally when you work with an inte- grator who's been awarded a project you spec, we check in with each other from time to time to check on progress. This is very, very different from that," said Brian Coulombe, associate with DVS. On September 11, 2011, President Obama, diplomats, heads of state, fami- lies of the 9/11 victims and others will gather for the official opening of the 9/11 Memorial. The next day, September 12, the 9/11 Memorial Plaza at the WTC site will be open to the public. This location, which has arguably the highest threat profile in the world, will be both an open public space and a construction site for the next few years. DVS and Diebold are working togeth- er on two security projects on the site: the installation of site-wide Situational Awareness Platform Software (SAPS); and a perimeter access control and sur- veillance system that will remain in place for the multi-year construction phase of the WTC project. Core members of the two teams met with Security Systems News over the course of two days in July to talk about how they're working together to prepare for the open- ing on Sept. 11, and beyond. The group included Phil Santore, prin- cipal of DVS, and his team: Frank Santa- morena; Brian Coulombe; Kathryn Bar- tunek; and John DeGeorge. From Diebold the group included Kevin Engelhardt, GM and VP of Enterprise Security Systems; Paul Woods, director field operations, Enterprise Security Systems; and Nelson Barreto, sales team leader, Northeast Trans- portation & Critical Infrastructure. Most of this group regularly attends the twice-weekly DVS/Diebold meetings, as do two different skilled project managers from Diebold, representation from SAPS manu- facturers Quantum Secure and Vidsys, project managers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and vari- ous other stakeholders, depending on the issues to be discussed. "The SAPS program is an incredibly ambitious project that requires unprec- edented coordination among the inte- grator, engineer and owner and the most important way we accomplish that is to get together each week to hash out all of the issues," Coulombe said. How long do the meetings take? "Two, three hours ... however long it takes," John DeGeorge said, adding that that there are always problems to be solved, disagreements to be resolved and decisions to be made. Tower 1 will evenutally stand 1,776 feet tall. "We have an agenda for each meeting that focuses on critical tasks and mile- stones ... and we also have project tracking. There are multiple flow charts, scheduled WORLD see page 21 THE PUSH FOR STANDARDS Will the WTC project affect the future of standards development, and other enterprise projects? By Martha Entwistle NEW YORK—Will a marquis security proj- ect like the World Trade Center affect how enterprise-level projects are designed and implemented in the future? Or, will this project, which involves multiple manu- facturers working together, translate to momentum for establishing standards in the security industry? Several of those involved in the project believe that may be the case. "From an industry perspective, I think this project will have a major impact. It spans multiple vertical market applica- tions," said Kevin Engelhardt, VP and GM, Diebold Enterprise Security Systems. "It has extremely scalable, replicate-able functionality," he added. The project is singular in how it brought together applications that were never built to work together and that were not constructed with the same protocol to operate together. "Facets of this job will be relevant to commercial Fortune 1,000 companies," he said, who have multiple locations and multiple systems, (security, building infrastructure and more) and have a need for "more than a command and control center—an enterprise wide security system." Engelhardt said the complexity of this kind of project will limit the competition for companies like Diebold. "Only people who understand the network capabilities and protocols will be able to succeed in this environment." On the question of the standards, Engelhardt believes the WTC project may have "taken down the walls a bit" in terms of some potential concerns among manufacturers about standards. When manufacturers have to "exchange playbooks" there's naturally concern about giving away intellectual property. However, he noted that the WTC project involved lots of cooperation (perhaps an unprecedented amount of cooperation) among manufacturers and yet "the level of information they needed to share to pull off this project is not as deep as they may have thought—you don't have to get into the bits and bytes of their applica- tions and give away intellectual property knowledge." And the reward of that kind of cooperation is a much more powerful security system. Lenel, a division of UTC Fire & Secu- rity, provided enterprise-level integrated access control for the WTC project, said Christy Haycraft, national integrator manager for UTC Fire & Security. "How- ever, many of our other divisions are providing critical pieces to the project as well. Our EST group is providing the fire alarm protection at the site," she added. This project differed from other proj- ects in that "we were truly united in our strategy and pro- cesses and assisted each other in the best solution and resolution for the project," Haycraft said. "There is tre- mendous power in partnering. Great things can be accomplished when resources are Christy Haycraft pooled to solve challenges." Haycraft said UTC Fire & Security is active in many aspects of standards devel- opment. She's hopeful that the "experi- ence of collaborative efforts at this site will develop more concise security stan- dards for the future." Kevin Engelhardt of Diebold (left) talks to DVS's Phil Santore. Bill Eckard is Verint's director of sales, Enterprise & Critical Infrastruc- ture Group. He's worked with the Port Authority for many years, and Verint has been a video surveillance vendor for the Port Authority for 10 years. Eckard said the security industry would love to stagnate on standards. "They've been proprietary from day one and they would still be that way if they had the opportunity," he said. But he believes the standards movement may in fact be pushed forward by large enterprise projects like the WTC. Like other large enterprises, the Port Authority created standards for itself with the types of manufacturers it worked with 10 years ago, he said. "They recognized that you can't improve business opera- tions if you have 10 or 12 different manu- facturers of access control." "Large end users are the early adopters when it comes to creating standards with- in their business and their systems," he said. Internal standards help them "take advantage of new innovative platforms and to get more out of products." The WTC project stands out because competing manufacturers collaborated by sharing SDKs, and because manufac- turers of complementary products that don't compete also collaborated. This is precedent-setting for both. Eckard said that, since the security industry is weak on standards at this point, large enterprise customers use products that adhere to IT standards. "They use conforming products that con- form to IT standards and best practices," he added. He believes that end users know, or will learn, that deploying "products that don't have standards-based SDKs to allow oth- ers to easily integrate ... is a mistake in the long run, because it's too proprietary." And that collective experience may help push standards forward, he said. SSN SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS