Blog: PSIM Trends

PSIM Named a Top 5 Technology by SIs

This week SDM highlighted The Top 5 Technologies for 2010 in a survey of the 100 largest systems integrators.  These leading integrators named integration platforms, and specifically physical security information management (PSIM), as number 4 on the Top 5 list of technologies that would have the biggest impact on their businesses this year.  This is great news, although not surprising given the challenges many security organizations face today.  With numerous security devices and systems that provide real time information, operators are inundated with data.  It is not correlated in any form or fashion therefore making sense of the data is difficult and getting the right information to the right people at the right time to ensure the best response is even more difficult - never mind tracking responses for compliance. 

PSIM brings together the data and event information and correlates and analyzes it to identify and prioritize situations that need attention – and provides step-by-step instructions for resolving situations and tracking them.  It intelligently brings information directly to the people who need it, when they need it. As PSIM gains market adoption and even greater acceptance by the SI community, we anticipate the power of PSIM will revolutionize how security organizations operate and will greatly enhance the safety and security of those organizations.

Effective Situation Management in NYC Times Square Incident

The responsiveness of the first responders, in this weekend's suspicious vehicle incident in Times Square, were crucial to managing the situation effectively in real-time. Additionally, critical information has been shared effectively thru public/private partnering. The cameras in the area are now being used for forensics to find the person of interest. This is a good example of having security intelligence and a well-organized response team in place to avert a potential disaster. Kudos to NYC - the situation has been handled well because of the people, processes and technologies in place.

Boston City Surveillance Cameras - Good or Bad?

There was a great article in the Boston Globe this morning titled, Watching from a distance, about the cameras being put up in cities around Boston to help with surveillance in key areas. There is mention of the opposition to the cameras by some towns and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because of privacy issues. It is an interesting debate and certainly one that needs to take place but there are a couple of items that often get lost in the discussion that are worth noting.

Here's a couple to chew on:

• As mentioned in the article, nothing is being viewed from the cameras that can not also be seen by someone in the public standing in the same location.
• There is no question that because cameras can be recorded, those images can be abused. But it is also true that there are technologies in place that restrict who can view what images and when they can view them. Organizations can also put in place policies to determine how long the images are saved.
• New technologies are available to allow the images and information to be shared across agencies in an emergency which can help agencies not only coordinate efforts for faster response but also lower manpower efforts. That technology was used in NYC when the plane landed on the Hudson. While I would not be one to argue lower cost justifies loss of privacy (even in these tough times), if it was my child that was kidnapped, or my family that got medical care faster or my community that limited a hazardous waste disaster because first responders were better able to do their job, I would be hard pressed to say that was bad.

Any organization or person can abuse power and technology for their own personal goals.  But I believe that the majority of the professionals that put their lives on the line to protect and save our lives have all the best intentions.  They need the tools to make our streets and our lives safer and we need to assure, through technology and policy, that the tools are not abused.   Certainly the "bad" people out there are not thinking twice about using these new technologies against us.

TechSec 2010, Delray Beach, FL

While the economy may still be in "recovery mode" I was encouraged to see increased attendance at this year's TechSec conference,  but more importantly a significant number of systems integrators were attributing their attendance to an increasing interest they are seeing from their customers for a more modern security solutions.  With respect to PSIM specifically, I was part of a panel on the topic.  The panel amplified a view I already hold: now that PSIM is catching on, many traditional physical security device manufacturers are now saying "we're PSIM too."  2010 will be a year for customer's to seek clarity on PSIM - for example, is your access control system (ACS) truly a platform for physical security device and system integration?  What will motivate your ACS provider to integrate with and fully support their competitor's products (i.e., the other ACS solutions you may own or acquire)?  What do you think about the blurring definition of PSIM?

Public/Private Information Sharing for Mutual Benefit

Leischen Stelter of Security Director News wrote on Jan. 26 about the newly forged relationship between John Hopkins Medicine and the Baltimore Police Department.  The article discusses the two entities' plans to share information between their video surveillance systems, highlighting how this move is mutually beneficial - Hopkins improves its surveillance capabilities while the city increases its own surveillance capabilities by 25 percent.

This agreement is an example of how, more and more, public and private entities are coordinating in order to improve security.  By sharing resources, both parties are able to access more information in order to improve situation management as events occur.

However, sharing resources means more information for security personnel to sort through.  The article highlights the use of video analytic technology by the hospital as a tool to help with all of the video streaming in and the ability of it to alert dispatchers to any potential situations, but also points out that it's primarily used for historic reporting.

As technology continues to emerge that helps both public and private organizations improve security, shifting situation management from historic (or forensic) to proactive is crucial.  Here is where PSIM comes in - it integrates all of the data from all sources including video cameras and video analytic technology, provides a common set of services for analyzing and managing the incoming information, monitors for changes and automatically provides instructions or takes actions. 

As public and private coordination becomes more commonplace, PSIM technology, which includes video sharing and information sharing as two crucial components, will continue to play the critical role in tying existing security ecosystems together to help make security proactive.

Security Information Integration is No Longer Just a Dream

An interesting article on SecurityPark.co.uk by Gary Ball last week highlights a number of the challenges faced when trying to have a complete and total security solution. Two key failings of most security systems he mentions are:

1) Coexistence of Cyberspace, Personnel and Physical Security - without integration, there are holes in the security plan

2) Lack of automation - Automation is difficult to achieve in physical security, as the author points out, because, "physical security has only been effective when used with trained operators to monitor and interpret in real time the events displayed on their monitors." You cannot automate something solely managed by humans.

At the end of his article, he asks who will "make the bold moves to develop new solutions to these problems."  However, this has already begun with the introduction of Physical Security Information Management (PSIM).  Here's how....

1) PSIM integrates any number and variety of disparate physical security and surveillance assets into one operating picture, making relevant, real-time information available at a responder's fingertips. Now, with most assets within an organization being network-based, this interoperability is crucial (and effectively links together cyberspace, personnel and physical security).

2) A true PSIM solution takes situation assessment and management from a reactionary mode to a proactive mode, allowing organizations to apply intelligence to the information from various physical security devices and systems, determine the cause of the alarms and then automate the resolution of the situation. This helps reduce false alarms and eliminate human error.

PSIM is a rapidly growing industry that analysts predict will continue to grow for the very reasons Gary Ball outlines in his article - we need a way to integrate all of our security assets in order to take a proactive approach to situation management. 

In a time of crisis, when seconds matter most…

Last week the Miracle on the Hudson drove home the importance of everything coming together to turn what could have been a disastrous loss of life into a celebration of a hero.   Once the birds hit the plane there was no time for reading a manual, no time for a call to the tower to ask for help, no time for second guessing.  A less experienced pilot may not have been able to react so quickly, may not have known all the things to look for or the order to run them.

Not all emergencies are as extreme as landing a plane on a river but each situation brings its own challenges and urgencies.  While we would like to believe that all of our security professionals are equally trained for every situation we also know the reality is we are not.  Faced with a variety of situations we could use a little help from our technology.  That's where PSIM comes in.  It's not all about collecting and displaying information from multiple systems.  That's important, but more importantly it's about a quick and safe resolution to the situation.  In an emergency, when time matters, for a PSIM solution to effectively address a situation it can't be a partial solution, it needs to address at least four basic services:

1. Collecting information from a variety of devices and systems in real time.
2. Analyzing the information to identifying situations.
3. Providing a visual of the situation for verification.
4. Providing instructions or executing actions to help resolve the situation.

The few seconds saved up front by collecting the right information early in the emergency and being able to verify it quickly so you know what you are facing can shave minutes or more off the response time downstream.  In resolving a situation quickly, it's not just knowing what to do, it's making sure you are chasing the right problem.

While all emergencies we face may not be critical or life threatening, when you are the victim or need help, it may seem that way to you.

Teams, Technology, and Transportation…Saving you Time; Saving Lives

Last week the City of NY opened up the largest and one of the most sophisticated Transportation Command Centers in North America, the Joint Transportation Mangement Center (JTMC).   As interesting as the technology is, what makes this fusion center (combining video monitoring, dispatch center and emergency operations) exciting and effective is the integration of three organizations (NYC DOT, NY State DOT, and NYC Police) in one room sharing the same information and physical security assets, not only to do their own jobs but also to immediately team up to solve cross agency situations before they become nasty.

When a problem occurs in a loaded transportation system in a large city, time is the enemy.  For every one minute the situation goes unresolved it takes ten minutes to clean up.    Unresolved situations cost time, money and lives.   The new PSIM technology deployed in this command center allows all the agencies to share the 500 cameras around the city, share the information coming from road sensors, identify impending problems, coordinate activities to redirect traffic around the president's caravan, and respond to accidents with the right resources (ambulance, police, fire, hazmat team). What other organizations have you seen with this integration?

Technology alone is not the answer.   Multi-agency teamwork alone is not the answer.  The future lies in the integration of the two.   They will be showing off that vision of the future with tours for the JTMC at this week's Intelligent Transportation System World Conference.  For those of you that can't make it you can get a peek through the following link.  View the video...see the future.

Let us know what you think...

International Association of Chiefs of Police...meet PSIM

I've never felt safer than I did this week as I attended the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP)conference.

Among the myriad of guns, uniforms, badges and mobile command vehicles were a number of really interesting technologies that are being used to enable law enforcement professionals to respond to emergencies faster and safer (which of course keeps us safer too).  Cool technologies like ShotSpotter (gun shot detection), in-car information and video systems, multiple video streams pumped to an iPhone (by Lextech ) allowing first responders to control a camera with just a touch of their finger, or camera based video analytics that can tell a person from an animal at over a quarter mile away (day or night) are helping departments get earlier information on evolving situations.  In addition high speed networks and cross agency communications systems coupled with automated mass notification systems like At Hoc provide faster ways to respond to situations.

Let's face it...the more information we can get to an officer as he goes into a situation the faster, more effectively and safer he  can handle the situation.  But there is a point of information overload and it's less about pushing data and more about digesting it to provide REAL TIME INTELLIGENCE that can be pinpointed to the needs of each officer or first responder. Knowing there is a suspect in the bushes with a gun may be information that is fatally late 10 seconds from now.

To me these were the coolest products and demonstrations.  Tying together all kinds of sensor info or human input, analyzing it to determine what was happening, mapping it, displaying appropriate cameras, and in seconds automatically dispatching targeted assistance, notifying the appropriate first responders and agencies and coordination their activities.  In an industry notorious for no standards and isolated systems, Cisco's booth was an oasis of interconnected systems from 15 different vendors.  Not just connected but through Command Center products from Intergraph and VidSys they were actually interacting to demonstrate how they work together to address real emergency  scenarios.  

IACP...meet PSIM.  You now have a new weapon and life will never be the same.

Are Your Physical Security Operations…Autopsy or Preventive Care?

How would you classify your Physical Security system?    When there is a situation do you scramble to collect the information from multiple systems and find yourself responding forensically?  On a scale of 1-10 how do you rate your ability to resolve a situation as it is happening and before it becomes critical?

Most of us, if we are honest, find ourselves combing through recorded video, alarm records and access control logs after the fact to determine what actually happened.  This is quickly followed by a round of placing blame, demands for new technology and procedures to try to respond faster the next time.  Maybe even a new round of administrative policies that mandate we do better the next time.

The truth is, the situations we are facing are increasingly more complex and require the synthesis of information from multiple sources.  The more technology we throw at individual problems the more information we generate and therefore the more we have to analyze to determine what is going on.  While we are spending millions deploying the latest technologies, in the end it can come down to how fast an operator can wheel between multiple consoles to figure out what is going on and how to respond.

If we truly want to get the most from our investments we need to integrate our physical security technologies into a system that can turn all this information into early warning systems that tell us what is happening.   PSIM software, industry standards, open systems, and customer demand for integration are key to turning our command centers from morgues, to emergency rooms and ultimately preventive care centers.  

Respond to this week's poll and let us know how you rate your ability to resolve a situation?  And don't be shy - we would like to hear your opinions on what is holding you back from providing the right care.  What obstacles are you facing?  What's getting in the way? We're sure you're not alone...