Question: What is enterprise-level integration?
Answer: Enterprise-level integration is the name applied to integrated security systems that span several geographically separate sites.
The sites can be close to each other or they can be spread around the world – with modern communications technology, the distance between the sites is almost irrelevant.
Q: What are the benefits of enterprise-level integration?
A: One of the biggest benefits is central control. A single control room can serve all of the sites covered by the system, even if they are in different countries, which is a much more cost-effective option than having to set up and operate a separate control room on each site.
Other key benefits are that the security policy and its implementation are guaranteed to be the same for every sites, updates only need to be done once, and information relating to individuals is automatically and instantly shared with all sites.
In addition, a security pass can, if required, be given privileges not only at the site where it was issued, but also at other sites. This is a particularly useful feature for multinational organisations where staff may need to visit locations outside their own country.
Q: If there’s only one central control room, how can local managers check the status of their own sites?
A: Provision can be made for almost any level of local access. Typically, authorised managers on the sites covered by the system would have facilities for looking at information relevant to their own operations, but would not be able to make changes to this information.
It’s also possible to arrange for certain types of event – such as a fire alert – to be flagged up and handled locally, without waiting for input from the central control room.
Q: What are the main issues to be considered in relation to enterprise-level integration?
A: Setting up the security systems on the individual sites is usually straightforward, but the important thing to get right is the communication between the sites and the control centre.
It is essential to involve IT staff from the outset when the communications network is being planned, especially if the security system will share the corporate IT network.
A low overhead communications protocol should be used and robust security is needed. In practice, however, security is less of a problem than it might at first appear.
All good security systems that support enterprise-level integration encrypt the data transmitted between sites and, even if it were possible to decrypt the data, it would be virtually meaningless to all but a few specialists as it essentially consists of system operating parameters.
Q: What happens if the network goes down?
A: All properly implemented enterprise-level integrated security systems are designed so the each local installation can operate autonomously in the event of a communications failure.
A copy of the main database is held at every site and so remains accessible to the local system even if no network connection is available.
This arrangement has another important benefit. If the central office is put out of action or even completely destroyed – as might happen in an event like the recent Japanese earthquake – the copies of the security database at other sites will be unaffected, so no data will be lost.
