From Vision to Reality Turning Convergence Into Real Business Value

The convergence of the physical and logical worlds is already here. Security and safety solutions are increasingly deployed on IT networks. Several open standards have already been published, especially in video surveillance and access control. Enterprise security is being jointly addressed across the physical and logical domains. IT network events are getting monitored by the physical security applications and vice versa. An integrated identity management approach at enterprise level is readily available.

Similarly, solutions for smart grids require demand response capability to be implemented in buildings with communication over the Web based on open protocols. Remote and hosted services are already available. Integration of physical systems with IT systems for provisioning, change management, case tracking, predictive energy planning and sustainability reporting is all available today, in varying degrees of maturity. Thus, convergence has in fact already permeated to many of the building disciplines.

CONVERGING SECURITY AND SAFETY
The convergence of safety and security is a growing chapter within the convergence story. Traditionally, the two systems have been integrated to address scenarios arising from a fire alarm, such as opening accesscontrolled doors to allow for unhindered evacuation or closing fire doors to compartmentalize the zone of fire. Safety and security systems today are increasingly converging to common management stations to address further needs for intelligent (incident) response, such as in situational awareness and evacuation planning.

Managing incidents requires well-structured processes driven by site-specific workflows. Only such an approach can provide us with the assurance that every incident is well-managed from a response point of view. Reduction of complexity, unified command and control, standardization of policies and procedures, and logical user interfaces and workflows that reflect the scenario are implemented to manage incidents more efficiently. This results in improved accountability and assurance

EFFECTIVE INCIDENT RESPONSE
Effective response starts with gathering requirements and defining scenarios. Then, determine the availability of resources and their preparedness to manage each scenario. This is followed by creating situational awareness from several sources, such as convergence of alarms and events from subsystems, or receiving emergency calls. Then, communicate to first responders on a converged communication platform. Next, alert building occupants who may be impacted and give them appropriate directions.

The signaling in buildings should be available on multiple media, including PCs, LEDs or video screens, PDAs, and dissemination of information via text messaging or email. Additionally, you need to provide decision support and make a common platform available to share the status, protocol/process, decisions and actions. Last but not least, an effective solution requires the implementation of the process and capability to gather feedback on incident progress to have a corrective, closed-loop process that enables the response to be adapted dynamically and in real time.