In 2018, I wrote an article titled, “Future-Proof”, because in the physical security industry, that term had been in common use for over a decade – but with different and very limited meanings depending on the product being so labeled. In the article I offered a new definition that reflected the pace of technological progress. And I also wrote, “Today’s emerging products are designed to be part of an evolvable technology infrastructure, and that requires the future-proof attributes defined above [i.e., in the Future-Proof article].” Six years later, it turns out that we need not only future-proof products, but future-ready security system deployments.
Why Future-Proof Considerations Aren’t Enough
While the article’s concepts of “future-proof” above remain relevant for evaluating individual hardware and software products, there is a new situation that we face. It is the exponential advancement of technology, which in its initial decades was reflected by its slowly rising near-horizontal line but has now rounded its curve into a sky-rocketing near-vertical technology advancement. This situation brings new design aspects to physical security system deployments. How do we design physical security systems, and their networks, to account for rapidly accelerating technology advancement?
That is the question I focused on in my new free downloadable eBook, Future-Ready Network Design for Physical Security Systems. It explains in detail how physical security system network design has gone wrong and how we can fix it. This book is for anyone who has or provides a medium- or large-sized physical security system (or provides part of it). The eBook constitutes a sound common frame of reference for those designing and deploying physical security system networks, whether from the physical security side or the IT side.
At earlier points in time, physical security system capabilities – and thus their value – were always constrained by the technology limits of the time. Fortunately, that era has ended. We are now embarking on a time when, due to increasingly rapid technological advancement, our own knowledge and design thinking have become the main limitations.
The rate of this technological progression is staggering. To put it in perspective, 40 years ago, ten 18-wheeler trucks could not carry enough computer equipment to rival the radio-enabled multi-purpose computer platforms we now casually slip into our pockets and call “phones.”
So, in light of such rapid technology growth, why are we still building physical security system communication infrastructures using 40-year-old network designs meant for old-style office building LANs? And what’s more important, what should we be doing now?
Future-Ready Network Design for Physical Security Systems explains in detail how physical security system network design has gone wrong and how we can fix it. This book is for anyone who has or provides a medium- or large-sized physical security system (or provides part of it). The eBook constitutes a sound common frame of reference for those designing and deploying physical security system networks, whether from the physical security side or the IT side.
This eBook is the result of nearly two years of close research into networking at large (including IT, IoT and IIoT networks), and physical security system networking in particular. If you are involved in any security system network design or deployment endeavor, I promise that applying and sharing this guidance will enable a smoother journey and one with a greatly satisfying destination: a truly future-ready physical security system network.