A PSIM platform will be used not only by guards but also by administrators. PSIM solution providers have to design customized and flexible solutions for all users. “For most chief executives in this economic climate, the primary consideration is risk mitigation, but the close second and third criteria are ROI and future-proofing technology investments,” said Al Liebl, VP of Professional Services, Proximex (a Tyco International company). “Risk mitigation criteria vary by deployment, but are generally based on how much incident pain is created and how the PSIM solution helps to resolve these situations.
- PSIM solution providers have to design customized and flexible solutions for all users.
- Another key factor for management to choose PSIM is lowering the TCO.
- PSIM is the software layer that sits on top of other subsystems.
A PSIM platform will be used not only by guards but also by administrators. PSIM solution providers have to design customized and flexible solutions for all users. “For most chief executives in this economic climate, the primary consideration is risk mitigation, but the close second and third criteria are ROI and future-proofing technology investments,” said Al Liebl, VP of Professional Services, Proximex (a Tyco International company). “Risk mitigation criteria vary by deployment, but are generally based on how much incident pain is created and how the PSIM solution helps to resolve these situations. For most PSIM platforms, ROI is based on actions that avoid a ‘rip-and-replace' scenario and custom integration. It also drives down the costs of false alarms, financial loss from incidents and training costs.”.jpg)
Another key factor for management to choose PSIM is lowering the TCO, said Patrick Lim, Director of Sales and Marketing, Ademco Far East (an Ademco Security Group company). “Many procurement decisions are made based on the face value of a system; but when a large PSIM is needed, the considering factor has to include man-hour savings, management cost, cost of support, cost of expansion and technology road map.”
Other procurement considerations include the ease of integration with existing and planned systems. “The ability not only to send and receive information from the subsystems but to intelligently present that information and its relation to other current information is critical, “said Jason Troester, IT Manager at Unlimited Technology.
Adlan Hussain, Marketing Manager at CNL Software agreed. “There are a large number of reasons cited by the ‘C level' for the selection of a PSIM solution, if there is one that is most commonly referred to, it would have to be the visibility they have of their whole security operation. Bringing security into line with the rest of an organization, where the use of technology is proactively supporting decision-making and providing measurable results, is a huge advantage.”
Redundancy
PSIM is the software layer that sits on top of other subsystems. It is designed to connect disparate subsystems.jpg)
for integrated, unified security operation. “Even if the PSIM dies, the subsystems are still alive and self-contained,” said Bob Banerjee, Senior Director of Training and Development for Security, Nice Systems. “Two problems will occur if PSIM solution is down. First, you lost your situational awareness. The other one is that operators do not know what to do when an incident occurs.”
The nature of this approach enables subsystems that are connected through PSIM to sustain operation independently. “As such, it enables the native applications to act as their own backup system if there was to be any issues with the intelligent PSIM layer,” James Chong, CTO of Vidsys said. “Redundancy from the network side should be treated as any key applications running on the corporate network.”
“An organization must understand the risks to its system, if it needs dual pathways and what level of redundancy is required to make its system survivable,” Brecher said. “As with any other IT system, PSIM systems should have backup protocols and disaster recovery infrastructure — the same contingency elements and processes that would apply to any other Tier-one IT system.”
Smarter Responses
PSIM is designed as a converged platform, presenting the most relevant information and advising the best course of action in a crisis. It requires a networked environment for integration between disparate systems. However, subsystems integration is not what PSIM about. It is about the concept of operations and, most importantly, how to manage incidents. PSIM involves ongoing development to ensure it meets user needs. Such processes require customization and time. While system integrators, PSIM vendors and manufacturers can work together to tackle technical challenges, it is the clients' responsibility to establish their SOPs. PSIM software will not tell an enterprise what it should do until an organization defines its goals and leverage the software to achieve those objectives. Successful implementations of PSIM rely not just on subsystem integration and network configuration, but also on effective communication throughout an organization.