Cloud security - Round table discussions
The first half of 2020 has been full of surprises, to say the least, and many of them directly impacted the physical security market. The COVID-19 pandemic created endless new challenges, and the physical security market has done our part to meet those challenges by adapting technology solutions such as thermal cameras and access control systems. In the second half of 2020, we can all hope for a return to normalcy, even if it is a “new normal.” In any case, technology will continue t...
Cloud systems are among the fastest-growing segments of the physical security industry. The fortunes of integrators can improve when they embrace a recurring monthly revenue (RMR) model, and cloud systems are expanding the services and features manufacturers can provide, from remote diagnostics to simplified system design. But for all the success of cloud systems, there remains confusion in the market about the exact definition of “cloud.” Or does there? We asked this week’s Ex...
Ten years is a long time, but it seems to pass in an instant in the world of security. In terms of technology, 2010 is ages ago. Changes in the market have been transformative during that decade, and we called on our Expert Panel Roundtable to highlight some of those changes. We asked this week’s panelists: What was the biggest change in the security industry in the 2010-2019 decade?
The new year is several weeks old, so it is safe to say that many of our New Year resolutions have fallen by the wayside. Despite the limited success of our personal resolutions, the new year is a great time to take stock, look ahead, and plan to make 2020 the best year yet. Thinking about our industry as a whole, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What should be the security industry’s “New Year’s resolution?”
The new year comes with new opportunities for the security industry, but what technologies will dominate our discussions in 2020? Topics such as artificial intelligence (AI) and HCI (hyperconverged infrastructure) became familiar in conversations during 2019, and they are likely to dominate our thoughts again in the new year. But other buzzwords are also gaining steam, such as “blockchain” and “frictionless access control.” Connectivity and the cloud will also be timely t...
Cloud applications are an everyday facet of business these days, exemplified by systems such as Office 365, Salesforce.com and Dropbox. The physical security market is also embracing the cloud after overcoming some initial concerns and thanks to improvements in cloud offerings. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Which security markets are likely to embrace the cloud?
Along with the integration of security and other systems in an enterprise environment comes a need to centralize monitoring and control of the unified network. A control room is at the center of managing integrated systems, providing the focal point to collect information from a variety of sensors, analyze the data, and then respond appropriately. The technologies that drive these functions are changing and evolving, thus increasing the efficiency and efficacy of systems. We asked this week&rsqu...
While unpacking our bags from a trade show, it is interesting to consider the dominant themes and trends we heard and saw at the show. So it is with the recently concluded Global Security Exchange (GSX) show in Chicago, presented by ASIS International. Amid all the product promotion, training sessions, networking and tired feet at the show, what really stood out? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What was the big news at the GSX 2019 trade show in Chicago?
An aging employee population and the influx of a new generation of workers and customers is driving change in the physical security industry. Millennials – those born in the 1980s and mid-1990s – are especially impacting how the industry operates, the technologies it produces, and the customers it serves. This tech-savvy generation grew up with the Internet at their fingertips. They embrace innovation in all its glory and expect it to play a seamless role in their lives – and w...
One impact of Chinese companies entering the physical security market has been an erosion in product pricing, creating what has been called the "race to the bottom." However, political forces and cybersecurity concerns have presented new challenges for Chinese companies. Adding cybersecurity increases costs, and the addition of more functionality to edge devices is another trend that has impacted product pricing. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: Has price erosion ended (or slowed do...
In the digital age, software is a component of almost all systems, including those that drive the physical security market. A trend toward hardware commoditization is making the role of software even more central to providing value to security solutions. Software developments make more things possible and drive innovation in the market. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: How do software improvements drive physical security?
People are an essential component of any physical security system. Automation hasn’t taken over completely yet! But how has innovation changed the skillsets security operators need to operate systems effectively? The two elements – technology and manpower – must operate seamlessly and hand-in-glove to ensure that modern systems live up to their full potential. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How does technology innovation in security systems impact the skill...
The ability to treat patients in a secure environment is a base requirement of hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Whether facilities are large or small, security challenges abound, including perimeter security, access control of sensitive areas, video surveillance, and even a long list of cyber-risks. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What are the security challenges of hospitals and the healthcare industry?
With the advent of online shopping, brick-and-mortar retail businesses are challenged to make transactions more convenient while enhancing the “experience” aspects that differentiate real-life shopping from the simpler route of clicking on a website. Technology is helping retailers create that differentiation, including technologies such as video systems, deep learning analytics and point-of-sale (POS) integrations that have evolved from innovation in the physical security market. Fo...
Cybersecurity has become the ultimate buzzword in the physical security market. And it also represents one of the industry’s most intractable challenges. Several years ago, the problem with cybersecurity was lack of awareness among physical security practitioners. It’s now safe to say that awareness has increased. Everyone today talks about cybersecurity, but has it helped the larger problem? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Is greater awareness helping to increase...
Technology advancements often come with new terms and definitions. The language of our marketplace evolves to include new words that describe innovations in the industry. In the skilled hands of marketers, terms intended to be descriptive can also take a new element of ‘buzz,’ often presaging exciting developments that will drive the future. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What new buzzword have you heard, and what does it mean for the industry?
Statistically speaking, incidents of terrorism are unlikely to impact most businesses and institutions. However, the mere possibility of worst-case-scenario attacks is enough to keep security professionals awake at night. Compounding the collective anxiety is the minute-by-minute media coverage when an attack does occur. The immediacy of the shared experience of global tragedy impacts us all – including security system decision-makers. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Ho...
ISC West 2019 is in the industry’s rear-view mirror, and what a show it was! The busy three days in April offered a preview of exciting technologies and industry trends for the coming year. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What was the big news at ISC West 2019?
Ethical hackers are familiar to the world of cybersecurity. As cybersecurity awareness increases in physical security, they are also playing a larger role to ensure the safety of networked and information technologies used in our market. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the role of ‘ethical hackers’ to ensure cybersecurity of networked products in the physical security market?
A basic tenet of sales is ABC – always be closing. But it's a principle that most professional salespeople would say oversimplifies the process. Especially in a sophisticated, high-tech market such as physical security, the required sales skills are much more involved and nuanced. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: What unique characteristics are required of salespeople in the arena of physical security systems?
The year ahead holds endless promise for the physical security industry, and much of that future will be determined by which technologies the industry embraces. The menu of possibilities is long – from artificial intelligence to the Internet of Things to the cloud and much more – and each technology trend has the potential to transform the market in its own way. We tapped into the collective expertise of our Expert Panel Roundtable to answer this question: What technology trend will...
The new year 2019 is brimming with possibilities for the physical security industry, but will those possibilities prove to be good news or bad news for our market? Inevitably, it will be a combination of good and bad, but how much good and how bad? We wanted to check the temperature of the industry as it relates to expectations for the new year, so we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How optimistic is your outlook for the physical security industry in 2019? Why?
Physical security technologies operate successfully in many different markets, but in which markets do they fall short? Physical security is a difficult challenge that can sometime defy the best efforts of manufacturers, integrators and end users. This is especially the case in some of the more problematic markets and applications where even the best technology has to offer may not be good enough, or could it be that the best technology has not been adequately applied? We asked this week’s...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a current buzzword in the physical security market – and the subject of considerable hype. However, AI sometimes get negative press, too, including dire warnings of its potential and eventual impact from some of our most prominent technology thinkers. We decided to take the issue to our Expert Panel Roundtable with this week’s question: What are the negative impacts and/or new challenges of AI for physical security?
When is it too late to learn that a video camera isn’t working properly? As any security professional will tell you, it’s too late when you find that the system has failed to capture critical video. And yet, for many years, system administrators “didn’t know what they didn’t know.” And when they found out, it was too late, and the system failed to perform as intended. Fortunately, in today’s technology-driven networked environment, monitoring a system&rs...
The physical security industry is embracing the cloud in a big way. Cloud-based systems – which involve accessing a shared pool of information technology resources via the Internet – are much higher-profile in the video and access control markets, and large and small companies are getting on the cloud bandwagon. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: What factors are contributing to growth in cloud systems in the security market?
We are living in the age of Big Data, and businesses are inundated with large volumes of data every day. Success depends on capturing, analyzing and ultimately transforming that data into information and intelligence that can be used to improve the business. So, it is with today's physical access control and video systems, too, which also generate unprecedented levels of data. But how can we make the data useful to end users and how can they realize its full value? We asked this week's Expert Pa...
By definition, an edge device is an entry point to a network. In the physical security industry, edge devices are the cameras, sensors, access controllers, readers and other equipment that provide information to the IP networks that drive today’s systems. In the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing refers to an increasing role of edge devices to process data where it is created instead of sending it across a network to a data center or the cloud. In our market, edge computing takes the...
Where does the time go? Before you know it, here we are at mid-year reflecting on an eventful first half of 2018 in the physical security market. It’s also a good time for our Expert Panel Roundtable to pause and look ahead at what we might expect in the second half of the year. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What technology development will have the greatest impact in the second half of 2018?
In the analog era, videotape was the storage media of choice for CCTV systems. Since the advent of digital video, and of IP-based systems, a variety of other storage formats have come to the fore, including hard drives, flash drives, SD cards and others. Now we are in the age of the cloud, which offers new opportunities to store vast amounts of video and presents challenges such as bandwidth and cybersecurity. For a current perspective on storage, we asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: Ho...
