During the ADT Media Summit, members of the security press received a virtual tour via video conference of the companys $1.5 million Integrated Solutions Center.
By Scott Goldfine
CHICAGO — "We're in a new era as integrators where training and understanding of IT is becoming the norm," ADT's Jim Lantrip told members of the security press. He went on to say security and IT are becoming synonymous and that the new key to the marketplace is helping customers improve efficiencies and cut costs by using technology tools for compliance, as well as solving business needs.
The comments from Lantrip, who serves as director, integration strategy, came during a session titled "Pervasive Video's Impact on Government and Corporate Enterprise Networks" as part of this year's ADT Media Summit at the W Hotel in downtown Chicago, May 9-11. The presentation also included Bill Stuntz, vice president, physical security business unit, Cisco, a leading partner in ADT's approach to converged security solutions.
Stuntz identified five key trends at the heart of today's physical-IT security convergence: 1) shifting from products to total solutions; 2) distributing information to make better decisions; 3) generating event responses that are unified and automated; 4) advances in IT architectures that improve efficiencies; and 5) expansion and enhancement of services.
The event's program also included: cloud-based physical and logical access control in the federal government market that featured Brivo Systems President/CEO Steve Van Till; how Freeport, Texas, will use a wireless mesh network and IP-based video surveillance to protect critical infrastructure; food defense and how one major food processor is working to meet the requirements of recent federal legislation; and a look at what the future holds for new security technologies and services.
In addition, attendees received a virtual tour via video conference of ADT's new $1.5 million Integrated Solutions Center in Aurora, Colo. The facility includes mock setups replicating retail, banking and just about any other type of commercial environment to help customers experience what varying solutions might offer their particular organization.
Some of the motivations behind ADT's recently announced acquisition of physical security information management (PSIM) software developer Proximex became clearer during the Media Summit. This was especially the case during the food defense and security future sessions.
During the latter, Tony Mucci, ADT director of process/policy engineering, repeatedly emphasized how software is the key to security innovation today. He cited five factors enabling the combining of a multitude of indicators (delivered through access control, video surveillance, intrusion detection, etc.) to render more intelligent decision making. They are: 1) physical-IT convergence; 2) data mining; 3) cloud computing; 4) service-oriented architectures; and 5) identity management.
Don Hsieh, who is heading up ADT's Food Defense initiative, provided a more specific example of how imperative it is becoming to tie myriad systems together. After all, few areas are as critical or of as enormous complexity as the world's food supply. And it's a market in which the potential economic implications can equal or outweigh those associated with human well being.
Hsieh referenced some staggering numbers behind the federal government's recently approved Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). He showed that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 48 million cases of people eating contaminated food annually, with 125,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. "This is the biggest expansion of food safety since 1938. Responsibilities, controls, enforcement and fees have all been heightened," said Hsieh. He also talked about the tremendous opportunity for security providers and highlighted ADT's "4 Actionable A's of Food Defense": Assess, Access, Alert and Audit.
Scott Goldfine is Editor-in-Chief of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION. He can be reached at (704) 663-7125.