Transition Networks simplifies IP device management

June 20, 2018
Company offers 'Device Management System' software with its Smart Managed PoE+ switches

With all the technology advancements the security industry has seen in recent years, it can be easy to overlook some of the more basic aspects of security system deployments, such as providing for the ongoing maintenance of an IP network. Of course, something as blatantly obvious as ensuring that cameras or access readers remain operational is not as an attractive selling point as software that can automatically recognize faces or someone’s unique biometric identifiers, however; it is a fundamental requirement in today’s security landscape.

The loss of a network security device for even a brief period of time can be a costly proposition for any organization, resulting not only in potential litigation for an end-user but the loss of a contract for an integrator. For example, in 2013, the City of Atlanta fired one of its security vendors when it was discovered that a surveillance camera located near the scene of a murder was found to be not operating after the fact.

As part of an effort to make ongoing maintenance easier, Transition Networks, a provider of intelligent edge connectivity and Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) solutions, recently developed Device Management System (DMS) software for its Smart Managed PoE+ Switches that provides integrators with the ability to remotely configure and run diagnostics on cameras and other IP devices connected to the network. The company has also integrated its DMS software with Milestone Systems’ XProtect video management system, which gives users the option to manage their network devices directly through the DMS portal or within the XProtect interface.  

According to Dennis Troxel, Senior Principal Engineer of Transition Networks, the company purpose built its Smart Managed PoE+ Switches – available in 8-, 16- and 24-port commercial versions and 4- and 8-port industrial versions – for the security marketplace with the DMS software included.

“There’s no additional licensing or anything like that (users) have to bother with and with inclusion of that software, we provide monitoring of their network devices,” Troxel explains. “Once they plug them in (to the switch), we provide auto-discovery of those devices and then they have the capability to click on a device and configure and manage it directly through the switch. You also have the capability to check IP and cable connections, as well as traffic monitoring, bandwidth and troubleshooting.”      

Once a user puts the IP address of the switch into a web browser, they’re able to instantly pull up the DMS user interface and simply point and click to manage device configurations. It also offers a graphical topology view to give end-users and integrators end-to-end visibility of the devices being powered by the switch and also provide them with remote access to each of them.

“There not a lot of typing or anything to do here in terms of setting up the switch itself,” Troxel adds. “The user can actually double click right on a port and we automatically bring up detailed statistics of that port.”    

The switches also offer cable diagnostic capabilities as well as an Auto Power Reset (APR) feature to monitor and automatically restart edge devices, helping integrators avoid truck rolls for simple rebooting of attached hardware.

“The biggest headache that I’ve heard from end-user security customers and integrators is that a camera gets a glitch in it, stops working and they have to send a truck out and reset it,” Troxel says. “What we’re doing with this feature is pinging the device and if it doesn’t respond, we automatically reboot the port. This saves them the time of having to send someone out there and additional costs to their business and allows me to reboot their product if it just got a glitch in it and it stopped working.”

Troxel says they also track how many times they’ve had to reboot device which can alert users of potentially failing hardware on their network.

“If an end-user looks at it and it has had to be rebooted once or twice they can say, ‘Ok, it had a glitch in it and we rebooted it and it fixed it.’ If it says 20 or 30 times, now what we’re telling them is that they do have to roll a truck to fix it but it is an intelligent truck roll knowing that I’m going to take a camera with me because it is not just simple reboot situation at that point,” he adds.

Historically, Troxel says the importance of the switch was really overlooked by a lot of people within the security industry, however; given the crucial role it plays in powering devices on the network and the unique insights it can now provide relative to diagnostics, that may begin to change.

“If you think about it, (the switch) is powering all of the devices that are attached to it plus providing the data infrastructure back to those network connections through the switch, so you see people that want to look at the fancy cameras and pick out which ones they want as well as access control and door locks and those types of things, but the switch is always the last concern, like ‘Oh yeah, we need a switch too,’ Troxel says.

“The switch is more valuable than any of the other devices on the network because if the switch is down, so is everything else. That’s why we tried to build a product that’s economical for the security user but also have features like IP and cable diagnostics, like Auto Power Reset to save them those truck rolls that cost money and then, of course, the DMS functionality where now I can offer them topology maps – the don’t’ have to draw anything – that saves them time and money, plus the ability to directly access the device from the switch. Now the person who is managing the network can sit in their office connected to switch and, through DMS, talk to any of the devices or change configurations.”

About the Author:

Joel Griffin is the Editor-in-Chief of SecurityInfoWatch.com and a veteran security journalist. You can reach him at [email protected].