What Integrators Need To Know About Access Control In An IP Video Surveillance Market
By Reinier Tuinzing, Strategic Alliance Manager, Americas, Milestone Systems
According to research firm IHS, the worldwide IP video surveillance market now exceeds analog video system sales in North America. The long-predicted trend that has been discussed since the first IP video camera was demonstrated in 1996, is here.
What are the implications of this for the access control market?
Physical security as we have known it is being redefined. Unfortunately the days of leaving your house door unlocked have all but disappeared. Today uncertainty and unrest have changed the views on security to include not just a locked door, but in critical environments, multiple layers of security.
Not only are we locking the door, but we want to see who is at the door or moving anywhere nearby outside the door. In essence customers want to “video enable” the door. According to BSRIA’s 2011 World Security Report, 80 percent of access control installations now include video. The shift in the market to IP-centric security installations joined with open platform video management software allows integrators to combine different technologies to provide their customers with the most efficient solutions.
IP network surveillance and access control are especially in high focus for key vertical markets like education, retail, critical infrastructure, and transportation. Technology advancements allow integrators to easily deliver IP access control with video and combine these with additional applications like people counting, loitering, dwell-time tracking, license plate recognition, and more. 80 percent of access control installations that are installed with Milestone video include at least one other such video-enabling application about 40 to 50 percent of the time.
These video integrations are being used for more than strictly security uses, too. For instance, access control and video for a SMB retail business could mean counting the number of customers entering through which door at which time of the day and month. Or an integration of these technologies alerts and triggers locking a door in a healthcare facility for memory-impaired patients with RFID tags who wander too close to an exit. Or a business facility with expensive assets and similarly combine RFID tags integrated with video and access control to notify personnel before a critical asset “walks” out the door — and lock down that door.
Some government mandates for critical facilities such as chemical processing and transport or energy generation and distribution require a very high-level physical security system with access control and video to be installed. For example, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards require multiple layers of access control and 24-hour monitoring for the electric utility industry.
For integrators, the opportunity is to expand your business to include a holistic security system for customers: be the translator of technology innovation and deliver solution reliability. Become the trusted advisor for your customers by establishing “stickiness” for retention in customer relationships.
How to get started? Learn access control and IP video technology, through achieving the training and certifications in this exciting growth area of open choices though open platform technology. Not only can you achieve the certifications but also maintain and expand your knowledge as new technologies emerge and become available.
Be aware that while new developments continue to emerge, integrating multiple systems can be a challenge. No one vendor can deliver all the flexibility needed for future options if they only offer an “all-inclusive” system. Working with an open platform architecture provides the necessary flexibility to choose from best-in-class vendors to meet any customer’s requirements — today and tomorrow.
The ability to integrate access control with IP video surveillance joined with other video-enabling applications establishes the expertise with customers that will differentiate a systems integrator’s capabilities from the competition.