The buzz around the Genetec booth at the 2019 ISC West event this week centered around the release of its 5.8 updates to the Security Center software that provides end users added flexibility to customize the way security operations personnel receive, accept and disseminate data throughout an organization.
Talking with Andrew Elvish, Genetec's Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, he says this week's release of Genetec 5.8 Security Center is interesting when one considers how the vendor now approaches systems unification stating that this is where Genetec planted its flag.
"When you consider the scale of the systems that we are now dealing with, the enormity of the projects our systems integrators are working on as they are managing tens of thousands of sensors can be staggering. This new 5.8 release is the type of solution the end-user clients we specialize in were looking for. It allows them to eliminate the noise and the clutter of information that can overwhelm both the system and the operator to help provide manageable outcomes," explains Elvish.
Genetec's open-architecture platform unifies video surveillance, access control, automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), communications, and analytics. With customizable live dashboards, enhanced privacy protection features, a brand-new map-driven mobile app, and new functionalities that help users actively monitor the health of their system and ensure compliance with cybersecurity best practices, version 5.8 will ensure that users can optimize their physical security environment while benefiting from greater visibility into their operations.
Elvish highlighted the benefits of the enhanced dashboard feature pointing out its capacity to fuse various sources of data within one single pane of glass allows for native Security Desk tasks to leverage the built-in platform features such as the ability to save, export, and share dashboards with other users in the system, which goes way beyond simply managing alarms and events. Security Center 5.8 allows the operator to create a simple dashboard showing the latest events from multiple reports. The operator can even take it a step further employing pin charts or histograms to look at risk and security trends.
System administrators are also able to use the dashboard function to monitor the system’s health by doing things like tracking camera firmware upgrades via the creation simple bar charts that show how many cameras have new firmware available, and how many of these include a security fix.
Elvish says the capabilities of the dashboard takes advantage of all the sensor data and transforms it into meaningful and actionable information that operators can act on.
"This is a big change. The operator can tailor actions based on real-time and tangible information. The way the team at Genetec designed 5.8 so that each operator can customize their dashboard configuration or the adminstrator can create the dashboard and deploy them to workstations is huge. This offers a wide range of flexibiity on how each system can be viewed by users," adds Elvish. "The real beauty is that the underlining data doesn't really change. The solution is built upon the unified platform which brings about all the capacity and the open patform that we can tailor to the market and the user."
The customizable live dashboard will enable users to set up their dashboards using simple point-and-click tools, and instantly combine data from the entire Genetec portfolio (video, access control, ALPR, etc.) in one screen to gain a new perspective on the evolution of events and key metrics across their operations.
Other enhanced features of Security Center 5.8 is a brand-new collaborative mobile app to provide operators complete access to their Security Center system when they are on the move and allow them to turn their smartphone into a valuable contributing sensor to their security system.
In addition to recording incidents, accessing nearby video, access control, and ALPR devices as well as sharing video from their phones to Security Center, the new mobile app will let operators share their location with colleagues in the operations center, send in-app messages and share live and recorded video through an intuitive map-oriented interface.
Ensuring system resilience and cybersecurity were also key features added to the new release. Security Center 5.8 will introduce a new Security Score feature to track each system’s compliance with hardening guidelines, firmware availability and updates, password strength, as well as several other dimensions of cybersecurity. Available through the built-in System Health dashboard, the Security Score will measure individual cybersecurity processes and verify that they are followed by the system. This will enable users to get a better understanding of the cyber security risks they face and enable them to take the necessary steps to harden their system.
