A global standardisation initiative has reached two security milestones – surpassing 25,000 conformant products and celebrating 15 years as the ‘defacto industry standard’ for interoperability.
ONVIF, which works with IP-based physical security products, has seen the number and type of products that conform to their profiles consistently growing since it was launched in 2008.
Beginning with core products such as IP cameras, video management software, and network video recording solutions, the database now has conformant products such as intercoms, license plate recognition cameras, drones, and services such as video surveillance as a service (VSaaS).
Leo Levit, chairman of ONVIF Steering Committee, said: “ONVIF has accomplished quite a lot in its first 15 years, but our work is certainly not done yet.
“As the industry continues to adopt video analytics, Artificial Intelligence, cloud and IoT, the role of ONVIF as a provider of standardised interfaces in these domains will only become more relevant.”
ONVIF Profile M specification was launched to support the industry in key areas of video analytics and integration with IoT systems.
The specification aims to standardise the handling of metadata and analytics events as systems integrators and end users can more easily manage the exchange of metadata between system components from different manufacturers, such as cameras, video management systems and other software platforms.
Profile M is also said to provide compatibility with IoT systems with support for JSON-formatted events over MQTT, a common protocol for IoT applications.
In all, ONVIF offers seven profiles, including Profile S for streaming video; Profile G for video recording and storage; Profile C for physical access control; Profile A for broader access control configuration; Profile T for advanced video streaming and Profile D for access control peripherals.
Products that conform to these profiles are produced only by ONVIF member companies and must support at least one ONVIF profile – but can support multiple profiles for added functionality, according to the firm.
Want to find out more about ONVIF? Hear from Leo Levit on episode 5 of the Security in Focus podcast below, as he discusses the history of physical security standards, and what the future holds for the sector.
