New products, new direction obvious at ASIS

Oct 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Paul Caplan

If you walked the ASIS trade show floor last month in Orlando, you had to be impressed with the sheer number of truly new products being unveiled to the industry. In contrast to previously labeled "new" products at prior shows, the underlying technologies for this season's offerings take the physical security industry into an entirely new direction, one that is both welcome and promising.

Virtually every EAC system on display at ASIS involved the intertwining of an end-user company's security and IT/IS departments. And, for many systems, that interconnectivity is not merely limited by the physical interdependency of network platforms and fiber-optic cables. Now evolving is a philosophical meeting of the minds regarding what defines a company's assets and the role the security department plays in protecting their value. Never before have the "bleeding edge" technologies of the security industry - smart cards, biometrics, asset tracking - been so tightly wed to the answers the major manufacturers are offering to the security director.

The reason is simple. The freely distributive and open-systems nature of the corporate information network has created a security crisis of immense pro- portions. To truly protect the corporate assets of the 21st century, security solutions must encompass the entire enterprise, both physical and logical, both local and remote. And, if this year's ASIS exhibits are any indication, the industry has indeed heard the clarion call.

This issue of Access Control & Security Systems Integration takes you into some of the leading companies of the information age and outlines how they are responding to their unique security requirements. Regular con- tributor Randy Southerland goes on an expedition inside IBS' server "farm" located outside Portland, Ore., in an area known as the "Silicon Forest" (Page 1). Complementing this piece is a detailed look at how Sun Microsystems is integrating the access control system on a worldwide basis. (Page 1).

Another application article highlights real-world solutions to specific security needs. Carol Carey's story about security at the Joint Interagency Task Force East, a government facility dedicated to fighting the drug trade, raises the stakes to levels most security directors will never face (Page 1).

This month's regular columnists round out the issue. CCTV "guru" Charlie Pierce provides an overview of what CCTV systems can do, can't do and will probably be able to do in the future (Page 45). Our regular column on Facility Systems (Page 14), written by Keith Henson of Lockwood Greene, examines the advantages of databases shared by multiple building systems.

Also in this issue is an illuminating roundtable on school security issues, the third special report we have published on this topic in conjunction with our award-winning sister publication, American School & University. No topic in the security industry affects more of our citizens, or strikes harder at our fears and emotions, than concerns surrounding the protection of our children. As a magazine, we are committed to providing the very best security information to those who can effect change.

The school supplement was made possible by the efforts of both publications' editorial staffs, under the direction of Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, and Larry Anderson, editor and associate publisher of Access Control & Security Systems Integration. Thanks to the corporate sponsors found in the special report, and congratulations to everyone for the leadership this ongoing education program exemplifies.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
• Electronic Pedigrees
• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue