AVAYA optimizes access control on a

Sep 1, 2004 12:00 PM

As the saying goes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. That is certainly true of telecom giant, Avaya Inc., the “child” of Lucent Technologies and “grandchild” of AT&T, including the famed research institution, Bell Labs. The transistor, the laser, the UNIX operating system and 40,000 other history-changing technological innovations trace their origins back to Bell Labs. With a legacy like that, it's not difficult to understand Avaya's passion for innovation. Indeed, today Avaya is a leader in the global telecom industry in business communications software, systems and services.

Recently, Avaya's passion for innovation manifested itself in a complete overhaul of its access control systems, encompassing 190 facilities throughout the United States and an additional 80 sites around the world. The goal was to create a secure, centralized global access control network that would be able to grant partial or universal access to any authorized cardholder. Not only did Avaya achieve its goal, but it saved tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

FROM BIRTH TO CONCEPT

The process that culminated in the deployment of Avaya's optimized global access control system began shortly after the company's birth. As part of its separation from Lucent in 2000, Avaya inherited hundreds of facilities, and the electronic access control systems installed within them. Avaya's newly formed Global Security and Real Estate departments decided the time was right to explore improvements to security at these facilities.

One of its first decisions was to enlist the help of a handful of Avaya security experts, including Bill Parkin, the company's manager of business threat assessment and physical security. Encompassing a range of experience from risk mitigation and guard force management to electronic security, the security team was assigned to determine the best route to implement a centralized global access control system quickly and cost-effectively.

Parkin contended that the essential element in creating a centralized access control system was synchronization between the Avaya SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) database and the access control system's cardholder database. This synchronization would enable Avaya to centralize access badge production while ensuring the automatic activation and deactivation of cards — thus substantially reducing data entry and production costs.

FROM CONCEPT TO BLUEPRINT

To help shape the process, Avaya's security team joined forces with Randy Nason, security consultant and vice president of C. H. Guernsey & Co. Their first step was to do an inventory of the various access control systems the company inherited from its predecessor. The process identified a variety of access control brands that included systems from AMAG Technology. The team decided the most efficient means to arriving at a single, centralized system was to build onto one of the AMAG systems.

Once the company decided on AMAG, Nason set out to estimate the economic break-even point at which the savings of standardizing on the AMAG system would exceed the costs of replacing all of the incumbent systems. “We estimated that we would achieve return on our investments within five to ten installs,” Parkin recalled.

With selection of a system for standardizing the access control system, Nason and his team at Guernsey could begin developing the blueprint to outline the framework of the global access control network. “We started by establishing a series of categories based on different levels of risk,” explains Nason. “Next, we came up with a standard for security system implementation for each of these categories. We then published standards documents that Avaya could provide to the integrators who would be installing these systems at its various facilities.”

With the Guernsey specifications in hand, Avaya turned to integration contractor Henry Brother Electronics (HBE), a member of the PSA Security Network headquartered near Avaya global headquarters in New Jersey. Satisfied with its security team's plans, Guernsey's specifications, and HBE's credentials, Avaya gave the green light to initiate the global access control project.

FROM BLUEPRINT TO EXECUTION

The initial plan called to establish of a central server at an Avaya location in Texas, with regional servers in New Jersey, Colorado, the U.K., and Australia. HBE would install AMAG's Global edition access control software on the central server and then partition the network so that each regional server would manage the Avaya facilities in its region. Badge production and distribution would be centralized in New Jersey and Colorado. Eventually, however, the system was consolidated into two regions located in New Jersey and Colorado.

Before the system could be centralized, the AMAG Global card holder database had to be linked to the company's ERP database. To facilitate the process, Parkin introduced the Avaya corporate IT team to AMAG. “Our corporate IT team was a great partner,” said Parkin. “They were extremely helpful in working with AMAG and HBE to create the connection between the two databases.”

Adds HBE's Joe McCallum, “The AMAG cardholder database receives daily updates directly from the ERP database through a SQL interface AMAG created for this application.”

With the AMAG cardholder database continuously populated with the identity of every Avaya employee across the globe, Parkin could establish a centralized badge production process. “When a new employee is hired, his manager adds him to the ERP database,” Parkin says. “We get the new record, insert a digital picture, assign the appropriate access privileges, print a badge and mail the inactivated badge to the new employee with instructions about how to activate it.” In the event an employee needs special access privileges, Avaya has designated individuals in various facilities who are authorized to request these changes from Parkin's team.

FROM EXECUTION TO RESULTS

For a period between their emergence out of the Lucent organization and the creation of the central badge production program, Avaya used an outsourced badge production service. Once Parkin had the new central card production up and running, Avaya was able to save tens of thousands of dollars in recurring costs by eliminating its outsourcing arrangements. In addition, Avaya's individual badge costs dropped significantly. “I went from spending 89 cents per badge before to 37 cents after,” Parkin says.

Synchronizing the AMAG Global access control database to the company's ERP database also improved security for a simple reason — cards associated with retired and terminated employees are automatically deactivated. “Prior to the synchronization, we relied on a manual process performed by several individuals,” Parkin says. “Often there were severe delays due to sheer volume of records to be altered.” With the ERP database synchronization in place, that process is now performed immediately upon an employee's termination, effectively eliminating the potential security breach.

Today, Parkin and his team spend their time expanding and optimizing the AMAG Global access control network. Avaya has built out the system to include locations in India, South Korea, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and France.

While the extent of the enterprise access control network has grown, Parkin has further streamlined the central and regional server arrangement while building redundancy into the system. “Our central server is configured in a RAID 5 with the operating system on mirrored drives with a fail-over server right next to it,” Parkin explains. “The whole system runs through uninterruptible power supply on a generated circuit that will allow us to recover from any outages extremely quickly.”

With close to 85 facilities across the world running on a single, secure global access control system powered by an ERP-synchronized database, Avaya proudly bears the mantle of technological innovation passed on by its ancestors.

FOR THE RECORD…

About the Companies

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com

AMAG Technology

12

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue