Page 78 - Security Today, April 2021
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relevant to the investigation.
A unified solution also dramatically reduces training time and
ensures that all security staff can work with every aspect of the sys- tem. Since all components are written using the same code, operators have to only learn one operating system and one UI. This allows staff to become more proficient with the solution as they become more experienced with how it works.
Finally, deploying a unified solution reduces TCO because organi- zations do not have to pay for multiple, disparate systems separately. Organizations maintain only one system and carry only one, less expensive service agreement.
Unlocking Business Intelligence
through Unification
One of the biggest advantages of deploying a unified solution is that it helps organizations differentiate themselves by giving them the ability to unlock business intelligence and improve organizational efficiency.
Generating business intelligence from sensor and system data requires bringing it together in meaningful and actionable ways. To accomplish this, the data first has to come into the security system as a single stream, which is impossible with integrated systems.
Because unification means that all of the data comes into one loca- tion as a single stream, an organization can use its physical security system to gain an entirely new level of business understanding. To access this information, organizations must deploy analytics to correlate
the operational data being gathered in the system. By making connec- tions and presenting the results in a readable format, analytics trans- forms the data into actionable intelligence that can be shared with stake- holders outside the security department and across an organization.
This helps to break down siloes as stakeholders realize the utility of the data being collected by their security system. For example, by using correlated data from an APLR system, a registrar’s office at a college campus was able to gain a better understanding of recurring parking problems. Faculty and students attending classes on one part of campus complained that there was never enough parking available in the area.
By looking at the correlated data, the registrar was able to determine that the congestion and lack of available parking were caused by poor scheduling and not a shortage of spaces across campus. According to the analytics, there was a lot of parking available at other lots. What this showed was that too many classes scheduled for the same time had been allocated to this portion of the campus. Using their unified sys- tem, the college was able to reduce the overcrowding without having to spend money building new lots by moving classes to other buildings.
Bringing systems together is a smart move for corporate, health and educational campuses. By focusing on unification rather than integration, they can protect their facilities as they improve opera- tions and unlock business intelligence. Fortunately, this work is already happening within the industry.
Jason Friedberg is the commercial head of Education at Genetec.
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Unified Solutions
