Another one of the educational sessions held during Honeywell’s First Alert Professional Convention at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes Resort Nov. 13-16 was “Selling IT,” about the hottest topic out there right now. The class was presented by a pair of industry friends of mine who are also featured in the November issue (“Intrusion Breaks Into the Network”) of SSI: Honeywell Security Director of Commercial Sales Development Dave Combes and Business Development Manager Michael Linebarger.

The 75-minute course was designed to help dealers promote and sell the use of network communications for security solutions. Attendees learned how improved testing of communication integrity assures the end user of the system’s more reliable network communication method. Also covered was how to decrease communication costs, save existing intrusion/fire customer money, increase monthly RMR and where to place equipment on the network to maximize communication effectiveness.

Some of the specific points included:

· Cat-5 cabling runs 5 volts a maximum of 328 feet, with repeaters needed to extend that range

· Caution must be exercised when introducing 90-degree turns and other tight or extreme maneuvering of network cabling

· Use brightly colored Ethernet cabling in your projects to make it easier to identify and service among the frequent rats’ nest of cables

· Tag your routers with your company name, again to make them easy to identify and also so IT folks will think twice about tampering with it

· Routers have 65,000 ports, but only the first 1,023 are available

· Be sure to connect routers to uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to ensure connectivity when power is lost

· Boost your RMR by monitoring environmental conditions in clients’ server rooms

Combes also explained to those gathered that the reason it sometimes appears like the technology of security products lags behind the IT and consumer electronics world is due to the rigorous standards and testing security products must adhere to and pass, which delays cutting-edge devices getting into the marketplace. He also encouraged companies to invite him to their offices for daylong training to really get into the nitty-gritty of networked security systems. Combes travels most of the year conducting such sessions. Finally, Linebarger handed out a Network Information Worksheet (shown below) and explained how to fill it out and why it is so critical to maintain detailed and well organized records of network-based security projects.

The sort of tag-team methodology and informal, been-there-done-that approach of the presenters worked nicely in this session, which encouraged lots of questions from attendees. It helped that Combes and Linebarger both have industry ties stretching back many years in that they truly understand the electronic security industry from the inside out, as opposed to someone from the IT side covering the same material.

Be sure to check elsewhere in Under Surveillance for more coverage from the First Alert Pro conference.

As always, thanks for reading.

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

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