Security Technology Executive

SEP-OCT 2015

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34 SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE • September/October 2015 www.SecurityInfoWatch.com Jimmy Palatsoukas, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Genetec, Inc.: One of the main differences between a PSIM and a VMS is each solution's intended purpose, as well as their core capabilities. VMSs are designed and purpose-built to help organizations secure their facilities through the direct configuration, man- agement, monitoring and recording of video cam- eras, first and foremost. PSIMs are not designed to configure and manage video cameras. They offer a secondary or alternative interface to mon- itor third party video and offer features like visu- alization, integration, situational awareness, and incident management. A PSIM cannot replace a VMS solution, but an advanced or enterprise class VMS usually can, given the fact that these VMS solutions offer capabilities such as integra- tion to third party systems, situational aware- ness, visualization through embedded dynamic graphical maps, and incident management, that are similar to PSIM. In the vast majority of sce- narios, a VMS will fulfill the needs of a security team. In these instances, a PSIM is not required. A few enterprise class VMS solutions are part of a Unified Security Platform which offers embed- ded video management, access control, intrusion monitoring, and communications. Unlike PSIMs which will monitor these third party systems, a Unified Security Platform will actually offer these capabilities out of the box and will not rely on third party access control, video, or communica- tions systems like a PSIM does. Chriss Knisley, VP at Haystax Technolo- gies: The significant difference between PSIM and VMS is the ability to integrate all kinds of security-related data into a PSIM, whereas a VMS is designed just to control cameras, cap- ture, and archive and search video. That being said, some VMS vendors are moving into PSIM territory by integrating other building automa- tion technologies like fire detection and access control with capabilities such as turning a cam- era to a point of concern. The PSIM is there to provide ongoing situational awareness, and help manage a response. VMS systems generally feed into or are inte- grated with PSIM solutions given video is one of the most common ways to identify events and issues. In some cases, VMS may just be the actual management of the video, and you may need to consider Video Content Analytics in order to get truly useful information into ana- lytics in a PSIM. Having the cameras on a map is a good start, but being able to identify spe- cific incidents is much more useful, i.e. person crossed a fence, entered a restricted area, left a bag unattended, etc. Generally, you want to be able to access and control your VMS from the PSIM as well. Dr. Bob Banerjee, Global Marketing Man- ager at NICE Systems: In short, VMS man- ages video; PSIM manages incidents. If you want to watch a museum break-in, buy a VMS. If you want to manage that same break-in, you'll need a PSIM (you'll invariably want a VMS too). A video analytics-enabled VMS or a VMS with an economical integration to an intrusion panel or access control system would detect a break-in and communicate: "Here's the alarm and video of something bad happening … good luck!" If all you need is notification that an incident is taking place, a VMS is perfect. Likewise, a PSIM detects an intrusion and sounds the alarm via its integra- tion to the VMS or intrusion panel, or any of the many other systems it integrates to out of the box. But its capabilities go far beyond that initial situational awareness. PSIM takes into account the many questions that fuel ongoing situational awareness, such as: • Where are the guards and who is closest to respond? • Is the intruder armed, and is that guard quali- fied to handle the situation? • In the case of a lockdown, how many people are at risk and where are they? • If there is an injury, who do I call? What is the museum's standard operating procedure for armed intrusion? • Will I use it or not? • Will I follow it consistently or skip a step? • What if I have never faced this scenario before? • What if I am relatively new? • What if I am overloaded? PSIM levels the playing field, allowing security officers to do the right thing at the right time. That's PSIM situation management. And after the incident has been resolved, PSIM helps explain what happened. Security opera- tors can pull together the audio, video, intrusion, access control, mass notification, 911 calls, and other related data into one coherent story. That is PSIM situation reconstruction, using a 21st cen- tury report. Brian Lettiere, Vice President of Prod- uct Management at Verint Systems: PSIM and VMS solutions were designed to exist independently from one another, but "PSIMs tend to be very expensive propositions over the lifetime of a project." — Jimmy Palatsoukas, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Genetec, Inc. "VMS systems have PSIM like functionality but are very limited in their ability to consume all pertinent data from third party siloed data sources. " — Kurt Takahashi, Senior VP at AMAG Technology TECHNOLOGY ROUNDTABLE

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