Security Systems News

Source Book 2017

Security Systems News is a monthly business newspaper that reaches 25,100 security installers, product distributors, central stations, engineers & architects, and security consultants. Our editorial coverage focuses on breaking news in all major se

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OCTOBER 2017 3 www.securitysystemsnews.com 2017 Access Control Source Book CLOUD see page 6 By Paul Ragusa YARMOUTH, Maine—On the residential side of security, the idea of using your phone to disarm your alarm, open your door or just check on things remotely has not only become expected today but demanded, as both manufacturers and dealers have embraced this new wireless world we are all living in. But on the commercial side of the business, especially within access control, that same kind of convenience, ease of use and access to resources and data at your fingertips is not quite there yet, although conversations with some leading cloud providers in this area provide both hope and tempered excitement for the future of access control in the cloud. "Everything is going to mobile, which is influencing the security industry greatly, and the residential applications are ahead of the commercial applications right now," said Steve Van Till, CEO for Brivo, a worldwide provider of cloud-based access control and Software- as-a-Service solutions for physical security. "But that is where commercial security needs to get to, whether you are talking about mobile credentials or installation or anything else." "As cloud proliferates in the residential markets, it will really start to push things in the commercial piece," added Melissa Stenger, VP of product management and marketing, ISONAS Inc., an access control company that designs and manufactures an IP-to-the-door cloud-based solution. "We are really taking the end user's perspective around how we develop product so that they have the same experience from their personal lives all the way into their professional." In terms of access control in the cloud, the industry is begin- ning to make the leap in regard to increased adoption. "Technology advancements and changes in end customer demand and consumption models are reshaping the physical access control market," noted Hilding Arrehed, VP Cloud Services for identity solution provider HID Global. "As indicated by current market research and surveys, by 2020, 20 percent of physical access solu- tions will be shaped by mobile and cloud architectures. Today's technologies allow physical access control providers to move from on-premise to cloud-based access control and an increasing number of traditional PACS head-end system providers have started moving their solutions into the cloud." Ralph Shillington, chief architect with Feenics, a company that provides on-premise and cloud-hosted integrated access control and security management solutions, said he is seeing a "rapid shift" among the end users toward cloud-based solutions. Access control in the cloud Powering the future of mobile access, big data, AI and IoT "But what is happening is their own IT departments in other areas are scaling back their own data centers and moving to the cloud and are turning to their security folks and saying, 'How are we going to get you in the cloud?'" Shillington pointed out. "The push is coming from the end users and is coming in a really surprising number of verticals, from transportation to property management to financial services." Van Till pointed out that security has seen many new entrants from outside the industry. "So those companies, especially with the pedigree of Latch, which is a former VP of design for Apple, and then Jim Clark who recently launched a new company, you've really got a Silicon Valley DNA strand that is becoming more prominent in the security industry, and that is where we are right now," Van Till said. "You are starting to see newcomers from outside the industry becoming very interested in security, and very interested in the physical world by way of IoT." Van Till noted that the minute you mention IoT, you are also saying cloud "because every single IoT company out there is built on the cloud," he explained. "So between the natural momentum of the cloud and then the hit from the other direc- tion of IoT pervading and making all of hardware devices much cheaper, it is kind of a squeeze play on traditional architectures in security and what you are going to end up with is 100 percent cloud within a few years." Stenger agrees that more and more people are getting into the cloud business. "All of this increased interest and new entrants in the cloud speaks to what end users want—a platform that is easy to use, has low cost of entry—while integrators want a platform that gets them into a recurring revenue model," she said. "What is driving a lot of that is you are seeing the price of hardware, specifically cameras, go to a commodity, so integra- tors are starting to differentiate themselves with the services they provide, and the cloud allows them to do that in a much more maintainable and manageable way; they can manage everything centrally for all of their customers and provide a lot of different services that they couldn't by just competing on a hardware price or an install price." As the cloud becomes more widely adopted within security, she said, integrators are going to have to shift their traditional sales approach to more of a managed services model. "You certainly see that [as] the emphasis of many providers, and not just access control but almost anything else in security and other industrial contexts," noted Van Till. "IoT is a very managed service in the industrial setting, and the channel wants it because it is their way of creating value." Steve Van Till Melissa Stenger Hilding Arrehed

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