With the security industry in the grips of the great convergence debate — and with PSIM having added to the often-confusing IT lexicon — many new projects were actually slowed while potential users monitored the results from early PSIM adopters. So began the myths regarding PSIM. Nearly a decade on, as PSIM continues to gather pace and growth is realized, it’s a good time to bust those myths, and for security professionals to take a fresh look at PSIM.
Early implementations of PSIM were often time-consuming and complex. Today, however, the situation has customers looking at commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) solutions that can deliver fast return on investment. PSIM is primarily a software platform. While deployment may require the services of systems integrators, these have reduced significantly, in line with far lower levels of system configuration required to meet customer needs.
Most security professionals recognize that a PSIM should have the ability to integrate with any system or device. Yet, it also needs to have five core areas of functionality to gain its PSIM definition — collection, analysis, verification, resolution, and reporting. In a nutshell, true PSIM platforms:
A true PSIM vendor will already have developed interfaces to integrate with a majority of the leading enterprise access control, video, fire, and intruder systems across a multitude of manufacturers. Thus, project length is no longer determined by platform customization, rather by more rapid integration to existing customer systems and then efficient configuration of end-user policies and procedures via the PSIM platform.
Customers are now looking at deployments of days to weeks. These rapid deployments obviously deliver faster return on investment through the realization of operational efficiencies at a faster pace — including reductions in manned guarding and false alarms, and increased accuracy of incidence response.
PSIM as a term is becoming widely adopted by security industry marketing departments. With a variety of manufacturers using the PSIM term, it would appear to signal that an array of systems from VMS to perimeter fencing specialists have PSIM capability. To a small degree, it is true that some VMS or command and control “front end” type systems have the capability to pull in alarms from a handful of systems. Yet, neither a VMS nor a perimeter fence system is designed to do all of the five core functions of a PSIM — collect, analyze, and verify data, and subsequently take an operator through SOPs to resolve and report a situation or incident.
A PSIM solution needs to integrate legacy analogue, hybrid, as well as IP-enabled systems. So, a first question to ask is: will a VMS integrate with another VMS? Since unique functions and features differentiate most electronic security systems, manufacturers are typically extremely protective of their intellectual property, making it highly unlikely they will start swapping proprietary code with competitors to develop an interface.
Large, multi-site customers tend to have disparate video systems, often running two or more VMS combined with a number of perimeter detection systems (PIDS), and the integration challenges this presents is often the driver for PSIM. Those VMS and PIDS systems claiming to be PSIMs will be simply unable to integrate, unless they begin by swapping proprietary code. PSIM vendors work with all manufactures to create seamless integrated security solutions for our customers. It’s not a PSIM vendor’s job to recommend any single manufacturer above another — a PSIM vendor should only focus on PSIM. This allows end user customers, or indeed partner systems integrators, to specify best in breed and best value security systems to fit the specific application.
A PSIM is a “value-add solution,” a term overused in nearly all industries. Consider the traditional security sales model of an installer completing an audit and recommending, for instance, a sprinkler system, 100 cameras, and access control covering 1,000 doors. That is a cost versus a value-add solution. The system may do its job, in that it increases the security of a building, but the system lifecycle may be shorter and security officers will need to respond to additional alarms per hour.
Without integration, when a fire alarm goes off, it may take precious minutes to figure out it is John from Accounts having a cigarette in the stairwell, and not a fire. In the meantime, a security officer is racing across campus to meet the local fire crew. The next time there’s a real fire, security officers who are overwhelmed with many alarms may not want to bother the fire brigade again.
In contrast, a PSIM vendor will work in partnership with end users and consultants to assess the entire risk profile of an organization and analyze its existing security processes and procedures. Once the actual cost of operating the status quo is determined, it is possible to identify improvements resulting from PSIM and their associated hard cash value. Add in the potential cost of non-compliance and PSIM providers begin to demonstrate “value.”
The cost of the PSIM is then a moot point, since while increasing safety and security, the savings far outweigh the initial outlay of the PSIM deployment.
This myth exists since many customers look to upgrade an area of technology or specific system, such as migrating from analogue to IP and HD video, as well as embarking on a PSIM deployment. While it’s often easier for a security department to earmark budget and upgrade simultaneously, a PSIM will integrate analogue, hybrid, and IP systems so rip and replace isn’t required.
There are technical ways around integrating even quite dated systems and devices such as legacy fire panels. In some cases, customers are facing such extravagant costs to upgrade large fire and security systems that PSIM presents a much more cost-effective option
A PSIM may extend the lifecycle of systems, especially for analogue CCTV. The industry is seeing a typical extension of around two years through customers realizing the benefits of integration before upgrading to networked and HD surveillance. Since PSIM’s open architecture will handle the interoperability and integration challenges, PSIM allows customers to select best-in-breed technologies from a range of manufacturers. One PSIM customer saved millions by purchasing security systems through a competitive bid scenario, previously impossible until they adopted PSIM.
While the advent of IP-enabled security systems provides one common network and operating environment, organizations soon began to demand a greater level of integration than most proprietary systems allow. As organizations constantly add new technologies and upgrades, this creates an endless stream of costly custom device integrations and support challenges. The integration costs and on-going support can be staggering, taking a significant share of the physical security budget.
This again takes us back to busting the myth that PSIM is expensive, but compared to what? Since connecting so many devices with custom code compounds the situation, as broken integration links result from each device’s product upgrades, requiring a constant flow of expensive custom code to fix the problem each time. PSIM applies experience from the software networking and security industries to optimize device integration that will leverage the value in the common network where proprietary systems cannot.
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I’m not sure I agree with myth 1. To get it working properly and to ulitise its full potential, it is not a quick fix and speed of installation should not really be high on the priority list for installers/ clients.