Advancis has more than three decades of experience solving integration challenges through its WinGuard PSIM software. Since its founding in 1994, the company has expanded the range of systems and vendors that can be integrated across security and building management, communications technology and IT infrastructure.
This drive was also the focus of a conversation at Security Essen between asmag and Jan Meiswinkel, co-founder and CEO of Advancis. He explained that the company’s approach took a new direction when the team asked: “What if our established ways of working were preventing us from opening our software further and accelerating innovation?”
The answer was the concept behind the Advancis Open Platform (AOP). While the direction was clear from the outset, realising it required a multi-year transformation of the underlying software architecture alongside the continued development of WinGuard. After years of development, AOP was officially unveiled at Security Essen 2026.
“AOP marks a major step forward in openness, although it is not a completely new direction for us,” Meiswinkel explained. “We have always worked closely and transparently with customers and partners to find the right solution. We will continue to do so, but we also recognise the limitations of purely project-specific configurations. In some cases, a solution risks becoming outdated before it is fully implemented.”
AOP is a secure, supported development framework that makes WinGuard extensible. New features, applications and integrations can be added without modifying the core product. Advancis, its channel partners and third-party developers use the same APIs, SDKs and platform services. SDKs for C# and TypeScript are already available.
Customers can choose from three WinGuard modules, depending on how they or their channel partners want to use the AOP API. Scripting (JavaScript) supports rapid, project-specific automation of workflows, actions and business logic within WinGuard. API Access allows external dashboards, analytics, AI services and web applications to interact with WinGuard through the AOP API within defined limits. For broader use, 3rd Party Extensions enable developers to create deeper integrations, features and adapters for individual projects or as reusable solutions. Customers and partners can reduce implementation effort, differentiate their offering or commission specialised developers, while developers can publish solutions for wider use through the AOP Hub.
In the AOP Hub (https://aop.net), end users, channel partners and developers can discover publicly available extensions and their developers. Advancis maintains the framework, while each developer retains ownership and can reuse or commercialise their extension.
AOP was conceived in response to customer needs.
“With WinGuard used in around 2,900 control rooms worldwide, there will always be urgent requirements that do not fit the standard product roadmap,” Meiswinkel said.
“Our goal is to address a large share of customer requirements through WinGuard’s standard functionality. There should be one platform and one maintainable product, rather than numerous customer-specific versions,” he said. “Remaining requirements can now be addressed by end customers with their partners, specialised developers or us. We see AOP as a community.”
Enabling close dialogue with partners
This community model also helps Advancis learn from its ecosystem.
“Our platform gives customers full control and can run on-premises or on cloud infrastructure of their choice. Advancis does not operate WinGuard as a cloud platform, which limits our direct insight into how individual systems are used,” Meiswinkel explained. “However, we remain in close dialogue with partners and customers. We have often seen strong, well-developed ideas that were close to implementation but lacked a structured path to become reusable solutions.”
“AOP helps turn those ideas into operational solutions with less friction,” Meiswinkel said. “At Security Essen, our AOP Innovation Lab demonstrated a connection between WinGuard, n8n and Microsoft Teams. Users could interact with events through chat and request information not included in the initial notification. An integrated large language model interpreted the requests but could act only through explicitly exposed AOP API calls, showing visitors how to build their own solutions using the same API as Advancis.”
“Openness goes all the way,” Meiswinkel stressed. “AOP provides neither exclusivity nor market protection. Developers can create solutions for specific customer needs or wider use, while customers remain free to choose the solution that best meets their requirements.”
“An idea with broader potential can also become a professionally maintained, reusable 3rd Party Extension,” he added.
AOP is a significant strategic step for Advancis, but the company believes the timing is right.
“Many companies fear that opening a platform means losing business or control. We believe long-term customer trust is built through openness, quality and freedom of choice,” he added.
Channel partners remain the central link to customers. Integrators with industry-specific expertise may also keep solutions private when that better supports their business model.
“Partners can use their domain expertise to build differentiated solutions and decide whether to make them public or retain them as part of their own offering. Both approaches are fully compatible with AOP,” Meiswinkel said.
AOP arrives as organisations’ expectations of security software continue to rise.
“Customers once focused primarily on features. Today, performance, availability, transparent software architecture and secure, maintainable software are also baseline expectations,” Meiswinkel explained.
“If you want openness, you have to commit to it fully,” he concluded. “The AOP community will help shape the platform over the next 24 to 36 months. Openness to new ideas and directions is essential to the concept.”