1. 18 www.CanadianSecuritymag.com October 2008
CSM: How did this standards forum come about? Norm, can you
explain what is to be standardized in this process?
Norm Hoefler: I’d like to step back a bit and take a look at the many
evolutions our industry has taken. A few years ago in the analogue
world one of the things we never had to worry about was whether
it was a Sony, Panasonic, Bosch or Axis camera in place — it was a
freedom of choice. One of the things that made things transparent
was the BNC connector and that was based on a standard and the
standard was NTSC. Across the pond it was PAL. The designers
and manufacturers could build things into their devices that would
satisfy the technology and everyone’s creative way of doing things.
But the one thing that the end-user and integrator community could
live and die by was they could pick and choose the interface — in this
case, the optics. Now we fast-forward and it’s an industry where IP is
starting to take form, but as with every new technology, especially in
the security space, what’s happened is we get some of the designers
who want to leap and bound over the competitive threats that are out
there so we’re designing things into these cameras — into the front
end of the cameras but in a standalone methodology. It’s almost for
the wow factor and then the industry starts to look at a number of
issues and I think we’re facing them right now.
Bosch has looked at it with Axis and Sony to take these encoder
technologies and make a bridge so we can maintain that choice — so
we’re actually going back again.We see it as a framework at this point.
We have to build the framework and the organization and then open
the door to others.
BobMoore: I think it will be important for the standard to incorporate
anything to do with IP surveillance, so things like PTZ control, how
you handle your storage, security — your front end system — the
cameras, the encoders — every piece of IP surveillance is going to
need to follow these standards because it’s going to make it more
easily interoperable in the future as more technology comes online in
the future and people take advantage of it. So it’s not just the VMS
and the encoders in cameras it’s going to be much more.
CSM: Why are we hearing about this now?
Moore: It should have happened earlier; I think a lack of standards
is one of the things that have kept people from leaving the analogue
world.
Carlos Varela: The desire is to look at how do we have the devices
talk to each? The PTZ control, voice discovery, storage, overall
The market leaders in video surveillance are spearheading a push towards
open standards for network video products. Canadian Security talks to the
manufacturers and industry end-users about whether greater interoperability
will mean greater adoption of IP technology. By Jennifer Brown
thestandards
revolIn May, Axis Communications, Bosch Security Systems
and Sony announced they were getting together to develop
a standard network interface for network video products.
With so many organizations currently adopting or
lookingtoadoptIPvideo,CanadianSecuritysatdownwiththe
manufacturers to discuss the development of the standards
organization and what it will mean for the industry. Also at
the table were some end-users, an integrator and industry
consultant to talk about how an open standard will promote
adoption of the technology.
STRANGEMOREPHOTO
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2. October 2008 www.CanadianSecuritymag.com 19
standardization has tremendous benefit to everybody — the
manufacturer, the integrator and the end-use at many different levels.
So it’s very exciting times.
CSM: There are other standards bodies out there, such as SIA
looking at standards for the security industry, are you working
with them?
Varela: There is definitely a willingness to work with the other groups
but our focus is on the connectivity of the different products within an
IP video system and that’s our goal.
CSM: How will this impact the end-users and integrators?
Moore: At the end of the day there will be big advantages for them —
the integrators will have an easier time doing an installation — they
will be able to match different vendors much more easily — a throw
back to the analogue days and for the end-user it will be easier to make
the decision. Having a standard here people will have confidence in
their decisions so two or three years down the road if they want to
change out a piece or two they won’t have to throw everything away.
CSM: Joe, from the integrator perspective can you see how it
would solve some problems your clients have?
Joe McCann: Yes. When you get RFPs or RFIs you see questions
like What are the best practices? You have to stand back and give it
a lot of thought because what we think might be correct may not be
correct from an IT point of view and/or everybody’s product.What is
lution
the answer to that question — I think standards could help answer
that question.
Terry Hoffman: I think over the last few decades, and specifically
since 9/11, clients have become more educated and I think the
industry needs to become more educated at the installation and
sales side of things. Definitely with a standard starting to be
approached I think we have exciting times ahead of us.
Lina Tsakiris: I think an important factor here is embracing or
understanding what a standard is as opposed to a guideline, and
recognizing that it’s the minimum requirement. From there it’s
progressive and you use it as a construct based on your particular
needs. But certainly to bind together subject matter experts and
create that optimum minimum requirement is necessary from a
litigious standpoint as well as many others.
Milne: Standards are always a benefit,but it doesn’t prevent us from
being better than the standard. I always shoot to be better than
the standard. At the same time, being in health care, as with most
industries these days, cost is relevant. If you look at the cost of
plasma TVs at one point in time they were $15,000, now you can
get one for $3,500. When is the right time to start turning things
over? Where do I start? Do I start with the back-end or the head-
end? I have to take that and balance that with the budget I have
in mind and that’s my challenge. We are in the last year of current
maintenance and we are looking at the next five years and part of
that five-year plan is IP integration. So then again, the question is,
where am I going to start?
CSM: Will moving to an open standard improve return on
investment?
Moore:Ithinkbymovingtoanopenstandarditwilldefinitelyresult
in a lower cost because with most companies today the front-end
system is integrated with cameras. If they want to add additional
cameras to the portfolio they have to devote engineering time and
resources to develop that API to talk to these other devices. If
there was a common interface it would be easy for them to be fully
integrated with the hundreds of camera companies out there today,
so that’s one example of how costs would be reduced.
Hoffman: There are benefits to going to an open standard and
disadvantages. I think the big thing for many end-users today is
we’ve just gone through a period of what we call vendor locking.
I think a lot of clients are thinking vendor locking is something
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3. October 2008 www.CanadianSecuritymag.com 21
they might get into with IP — they’re not educated about the
standard and standards going forward would take away the idea
of vendor locking especially with a lot of the large nationals that
are producing their own equipment — that’s the past, not what the
future looks like.
As a consultant, I represent the client. I look at the whole risk
management aspect of products, and a lot of time the product
that is picked for the opportunity is based on the marketplace or
geographical area. But a product is only going to operate as well as
it’s installed and supported and I think that’s the weakest point of
the industry right now. We hand over systems to the clients at the
commission point and the dealer goes on to the next job. It should
be more about on-going support. If six months after an installation
things go sideways usually the dealer backs off. If it’s a completely
closed system the next dealer you approach may not be certified. I
find certification in the industry today is very manufacturer-specific
and I think the standard should open it up to be standard-specific.
CSM: Bob, do you want to respond to that?
Moore: To his point, education is the key and obviously people are
spending time to be certified by particular manufacturers, but having
an open standard where you could be standardized across a variety
of products would be advantageous to the end-user and integrator
as well.
Hoffman: If I could just add to that, another perceived problem I see
for my clients is OEM relationships with the large manufacturers.
If they have the manufacturer’s camera, their encoder and develop
softwareandsothentherearethreecomponentsthere.Theadvantage
is to picking best breed versus a close relationship with no OEM
relationships.
CSM: Lina, do you find that to be the case?
Tsakiris: Yes, definitely. We need the fluidity and flexibility of an
open protocol system. I think part of that recognizing this is your
baseline minimum but how do you maintain it and keep it evergreen
and part of that process is knowing that you have choices in your
vendor selection process and not only for the implementation but
maintaining the system and we need that flexibility, without a doubt.
CSM: Is there potential for resistance to this?
Hoffman:IhopenotbecauseIdon’tthinktheindustrycanaffordit.I
thinkthisisthedirectionwe’reheaded
and outside of video we’re looking
at streaming all kinds of security
controls on dedicated networks.With
NTSC the dealers today were able to
source Panasonic, Sony — whatever
the camera manufacturer, through
the distribution market. Today we
do have the distribution markets
carrying IP camera solutions, but
the big players are pushing away and
developing their own dealer network.
By having their own dealer network
they are certified. We talked about
loyalty of the manufacturers — does
a manufacturer want to pick an
integrator that has all five flavours on
the shelf that is strictly going to respond to RFPs and RFIs? I’d
hate to see the life of the distribution houses go away. I think they
still have a place in the industry, but it’s definitely a problem going
forward.
CSM: Shaun, with a standard being developed, what concerns
do you have and what do you hope it will address for current
problems you have?
Snyder: I’m very curious to see the standards, once they are
completed, to see how they affect my job specifically because I
have to take the requirements and the requests and build them
in at the planning stage. When I started in this role we weren’t
part of the planning process — we were an afterthought.Todd has
taken great lengths to counter that and make sure we are involved
at the initial stage. We are trying to acquire our own dedicated
security network. Right now we are using a shared network within
the whole organization. I’m curious because we have only used a
few IP cameras for the purposes of investigation.
Milne: I see some resistance with IP I don’t think everyone is
completely sold with IP. I think there are some holes in that there
is the possibility for security to be compromised. I still think there
is a lot of concern — you’re opening another door to a whole other
set of issues.There’s always the possibility that IP camera could be
compromised.
Tsakiris: We’re all in the business of preserving life safety values
and we want to know it is going to stand up and meet our needs
as a minimum standard so we’re not over-protecting, but also in a
scenario where there is a criticality involved, we need to know that
it will survive us and provide us the information we need. So our
questions are very much around testing and evaluation to ensure
that when the environment is more dynamic and more challenging
this will survive us.
CSM: You mentioned a parallel standard – how will you look
at a standard that comes from the manufacturers against your
own standard at RBC?
Tsakiris: Carefully. We know the time and effort we put into our
own standards and we certainly have our own level of confidence
behind them, but definitely we’re welcoming of what’s about to
evolve here and will be anxious to see what the end standard will
look like and we’ll look to see if there are some learning’s there.
Attendees:
Robert Moore
Country Manager, Canada
Axis Communications
Lina Tsakiris
Manager of Physical Security
RBC Protection Services
Todd Milne
Senior Security Manager
University Health Network
Carlos Varela
Marketing Manager,
Security
Sony Canada
Terry Hoffman
Hoffman & Company
Security Management
Consultants
Norm Hoefler
Country Manager
— Canada
Bosch Security Systems
Shaun Snyder
Security Systems
Designer
University Health Network
Joe McCann
Regional Sales
Bulldog Fire & Security
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4. 22 www.CanadianSecuritymag.com October 2008
CSM: Todd, Can you see where you might have benefited from
having a standard created in the past?
Milne:Yes,Terrymadeaveryvalidpoint.Rightnowweareprimarily
analogue and a lot of things Terry mentioned about having a secure
room are important because we share space — we don’t have that
secure spot where we can just attach to the nearest hub room. If
we had that from the very beginning we could have planned for
that. Going forward with each new construction piece we have the
opportunity to look at that. It would be very difficult for us to swap
out the 350-plus analogue cameras we have now and switch to IP
and we’re still concerned about our storage space. Moving forward
for new construction, absolutely — IP is the future.
CSM: What is the scheduling for the establishment of the
standard?
Hoefler: That’s going to be difficult to predict because the founding
companies that are putting this together have created a non-profit
organization and it’s not only the marketing and administrative
folks that have to manage the body, but we have to look at the
engineering groups within each of these groups that have to develop
this. We believe the investment is for all of our future and as Terry
said earlier we can’t waste any more time.
Moore: I think the ultimate hope here is that options will be much
greater with a standard and although all competitors will be able
to be involved with that standard, the overall market will expand
tremendously.
Hoffman: Video is heading into a market segment full of standards
so this video interface standard is welcome and I think it’s great the
manufacturers are partnering up and working together. My view is,
we need to push back from the days of vendor locking and we’ve
been out of that to a degree, but it still resides in access control.
Hoefler: We’re looking forward to bringing some sense to the
evolution of IP. It’s been a little chaotic over the last few years and
the chaos has been at all levels, certainly from the manufacturer
viewpoint and the integrator and more importantly the end-user,
and the end-user is paramount in this and I think this is going to
help us move forward.
Milne: I am the end user so I like that comment — it makes me feel
better. University Health Network is engaged in a project where we
are building a new research tower and would I like to put these new
technologies in that new research tower? Yes, I would.Would those
new technologies be compatible with my current analogue system?
That’s important because cost is very real to me. So I have Shaun’s
dream and then I have my cost to factor in and budget constraints.
We want to make sure our future buildings are compatible with our
current buildings.
Varela: We’ve reached a level with some technology that we never
dreamed about before but there are some perceived restraints and
I think moving forward in this direction will help overcome these
perceived restrictions and make everyone more comfortable with it
and accelerate the deployment of IP video out there.
McCann: Basically everybody requires some sort of structured
framework to adhere to otherwise it’s a bunch of finger pointing
as to whose credibility outweighs everybody else’s. I think there
has to be a structured framework to start with and that we can
adhere to.
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