Hands-On Technology Lab Companies

For this event we have assembled a group of global-caliber companies who are the clear leaders in their technology category. These are customer-oriented companies whose product development is not tethered by legacy technology.

What's more, many of them will allow you to extend the use of your existing legacy technology and even get more security and operational benefits out of it. That's the best of both worlds.

You will notice some common themes throughout this page: extending the use of existing technology; providing advanced security detection and response capabilities; utilizing open platforms and open architecture; reducing security costs; and policy-based/rules-based security operations. Additionally, there is the dreaded buzzword "innovation", which is more than overused and which we hesitated to type on this page. But what else do you call it when a company introduces something new that provides significant benefits that haven't been available before?

To understand how beneficial their solutions are, you have to see them in action and use them yourself. That's what happens in the Hands-On Technology Lab.

Below is a list of our Technology Lab sponsors, followed by brief descriptions of the companies and their offerings.

—Your hosts, Ray Bernard and James Connor

Technology Lab Sponsors                   

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Agent Vi ("Vi for "video intelligence ") delivers the next generation in enterprise video analytics software solutions for improved security, business intelligence and operations. Deployed in dozens of countries in thousands of “Agent-enabled” cameras and edge devices, our technology seamlessly integrates with existing video equipment and IT infrastructure, making video analytics feasible, affordable and scalable.

Agent Vi Systems optimizes video surveillance by automating event detection, scene analysis and event notification.

Agent Vi uses the existing infrastructure of analog and/or digital video to create a vital and suppelmentary layer of protection.

Agent Vi dramatically lowers installation and operational costs by minimizing hardware and network bandwidth requirements, delivering cost effective, next generation video analytics to customers facing a diverse set of surveillance and operational challenges.

Deployed in over 25 countries and in thousands of “Agent-enabled” cameras and edge devices, Agent Vi's technology seamlessly integrates with existing video equipment and IT infrastructure, making video analytics feasible, affordable and scalable.

Founded in 2003, Agent Vi has sales, distribution and research and development operations around the globe. The company has proven deployments worldwide with customers in retail, airports, rail, transportation, education, critical infrastructure, utility, government, financial institutions and metropolitan markets.

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Axis is an IT company offering network video solutions for professional installations. Ever since Axis invented the IP network camera back in 1996, they have continued to innovate. An example is the Axis digital Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera with no moving parts.

Axis is the global market leader in network video, driving the ongoing shift from analog to digital video surveillance. Axis products and solutions focus on security surveillance and remote monitoring, and are based on innovative, open technology platforms.

In addition to network cameras, Axis also manufactures video servers, which digitize analog video signals and send digital images directly over an IP network, such as a LAN, intranet or Internet. It essentially turns an analog video system into a network video system. This allows advanced video management and recording software to be used with an existing analog system.

Axis doesn't stop at producing high-quality products. They have a very strong and consistent focus on partnering and education. If you want to know what's coming next in video camera technology—ask Axis!

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Cisco Systems is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Today, networks are essential to the successful operation of businesses of every size, and to service providers, governments, and homes around the world.

Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make these networks possible - giving individuals, companies, and countries easy access to information anywhere, at any time. The Cisco name has become synonymous with the Internet, as well as with the productivity improvements that networked business solutions provide.

Cisco IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS) 2.0 is a simple, scalable, comprehensive solution for communications interoperability and distributed incident management. It bridges radio, IP, and non-IP networks and enables multiple emergency responders to exchange important information on-demand for better incident management and day-to-day operations across departments, agencies, and jurisdictions. By sending radio traffic over an IP network, Cisco IPICS enables direct communication with other radios, fixed or mobile phones, and PCs.

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Commend USA is one of the largest global suppliers of Intercom Systems, with a strong, international Partner Network. Commend supplies solutions for communication and security, in which speech, image and data are combined on a uniform user interface.

Commend was first to launch a fully digital Intercom Station with a graphic display (in 1993), and first to launch a full duplex (talking and listening simultaneously) intercom system (in 2003). Using Voice over IP protocol, Commend launched Intercom over IP (IoIP) in 2005, with systems fully compatible with VoIP network protocols.

Commend's line of networked intercom products also supports legacy (analog) intercoms, bringing them onto the network and increasing their manageability without requiring a rip-and-replace scenario.

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Imprivata was founded by entrepreneurs who had developed groundbreaking identity management technology while working at Polaroid Corporation’s small business incubator. Their team developed and deployed large-scale digital identity systems around the world, leveraging its collective experience in the areas of distributed credential management and credential privacy to authenticate millions of users.

In April 2004, Imprivata shipped the OneSign enterprise single sign-on appliance. Imprivata’s unique appliance-based approach for providing secure and convenient access to enterprise applications became quickly adopted by organizations in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services and state and local government, as well as a mix of other organizations that needed to quickly and effectively solve password security and user access issues.

Imprivata next introduced OneSign Physical/Logical—a converged security solution that unifies network and building access systems for tighter enterprise management.

OneSign Physical/Logical integrates these two typically distinct security systems, enabling a single comprehensive access policy that allows or denies network access based on a user’s physical location, role, and/or employee status. OneSign Physical/Logical enables an organization to establish and manage a consolidated repository for all authentication credentials, and to have a centralized means of setting access privileges to logical resources based on physical access events.

OneSign Physical/Logical eliminates tailgating because it ties building admittance to network access, users who fail to badge into the building are denied network access. It also ensures that company resources are being used only by authorized employees, preventing redundant user logins, such as a user trying to remotely access the VPN at the same time that the system recognizes him/her as being inside the building.

Imprivata's OneSign won the prestigious "2008 North American Access Control Product of the Year Award" from Frost & Sullivan.

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inFRONT has served the access control and workforce management marketplaces for over thirty years. Throughout its history, inFRONT has cultivated a strong competency in integrating security solutions with core business applications that perform time and attendance, ERP, and human resources functions. As a result, inFRONT maintains a strong reputation among its clients for delivering high return on investment.

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Intransa offers scalable, security-grade IP network storage for video surveillance, video analytics and other leading edge security applications.

Customer-proven around the world since 2003, deploying Intransa IP storage allows users and security integrators to record the take from a handful, a dozen, a hundred, a thousand or even tens of thousands of video surveillance cameras with a single, easy to manage storage system.

Intransa IP storage systems grow modularly and inexpensively, reducing capital expenditures on DVRs, NVRs, servers and other devices, decreasing potential failure points and increasing overall reliability. Yet with a fully field replacable, modular architecture that can be upgraded to be fully redundant, and always available without adding complexity.

Customers can retain more, regardless of frame rate, resolution, still or full motion, for much longer retention periods without adding significant cost, yet supporting new applications such as biometrics and video analytics.

Starting with as little at 4 terabyte of RAID-protected network storage, enough for a dozen or more cameras, that same Intransa IP storage system can grow to support over 1,000 terabytes, enough for tens of thousands of cameras. And since all growth is modular, nothing ever has to be replaced and thrown out, but additional storage is added when needed, very cost effectively.

Intransa ensures that our scalable IP network storage integrates with security-oriented applications and equipment through our StorAlliance Technology Partner Program labs, with extensive testing to ensure complete, functioning solutions to customer needs, using the independent software vendor (ISV) or independeng hardware vendor (IHV) solution of their choice.

Intransa is a leading member of the Security Industry Association. Intransa products are available around the world through its StorPartner Channel Program security integrators.

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Kaba Access Control, based in Winston Salem, NC offers stand-alone access control solutions that can be integrated with centralized access control systems to provide additional access points at significantly less costs than wired doors. These E-Plex branded electronic access control products are easy to install, use and maintain to provide the optimum security and convenience. Globally, Kaba has operations in over 60 countries and employs approximately 9,000 employees. The company was founded in 1862 and is publicly traded on the Swiss stock exchange (SWX).

Kaba’s E-Plex products offer access control solutions that work with a variety of access credentials including PIN, HID 125 kHz proximity cards, FIPS 201 compliant cards, and Mifare & DESFire read/write smart cards.

The E-Plex 5900 Card-Connected Access Control System is CoreStreet-Enabled™ using strong cryptography to extend central access control to standalone doors, at a fraction of the cost of wired doors. Within this CoreStreet-Enabled™ Card-Connected access control system, standalone electronic locks and physical access control systems communicate by reading and writing digitally signed data (privileges and logs) to and from smart cards. In this way, cardholders become an extension of the physical access network, where cards, instead of wires, carry information to and from the standalone locks.

The E-Plex 5800 is designed to work with FIPS 201 Compliant cards for government applications, the Transportation Worker Identity Credential (TWIC), and the First Responder Access Credential (FRAC), as well as other PIV applications.

The E-Plex 5200/5700 series can be integrated with existing access control systems, or it may be used with Kaba’s own Advanced Access Control Software for PIN and/or proximity card access.
All of Kaba’s E-Plex door locks require no wires to or through the door. This makes installation quick and easy, and also eliminates the risk of callbacks later due to pinched or damaged wires. The end result is more access points at less cost.

The E-Plex brand of access control solutions can accommodate virtually every type of door hardware application including cylindrical, mortise, exit device trim, narrow stile glass doors as well as controllers for parking gates, turnstiles, electric strikes and magnetic locks.

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Lenel provides innovative and superior solutions that enable organizations to protect their people, operations and information.

Lenel Systems International is a leading provider of software and turnkey security systems for corporate and government markets. Lenel focuses on developing products that enable organizations to effectively protect and manage their people, property and assets by maximizing IT and infrastructure investments.

Lenel’s flagship security platform, OnGuard®, seamlessly integrates a full suite of security management functions and technologies using an open architecture design. OnGuard offers access control, ID credential issuance and management, alarm monitoring, digital video surveillance and management, real-time digital video content analysis, intelligent audio, integration of biometric technologies, intrusion detection, visitor management and smart card functionality, plus integration with a multitude of third party systems. Individual applications are available as standalone systems, or can be deployed in any combination to deliver a single integrated solution that uniquely satisfi es each customer’s particular needs. OnGuard systems offer unlimited scalability, and localization support for major world languages.

With nearly 15,000 system installations in more than 90 countries worldwide, Lenel boasts a blue chip customer base with a strong presence in a broad range of vertical markets. The company has earned numerous awards for technology innovation, growth, market leadership and customer satisfaction.

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On-Net Surveillance Systems, Inc. (OnSSI) is a developer of comprehensive IP video surveillance control and management solutions which deliver feature-rich camera management, intelligent detection and delivery and the most advanced means of video monitoring and investigation.
With core competencies rooted in both the IT and professional security markets, OnSSI's unique solutions provide feature-rich camera management, sophisticated recording and archiving, automatic Push Live Video on event, control-room video-wall management and virtual matrix functionality.

Ocularis, OnSSI's IP Video Control platform, is designed to operate on a single platform with unprecedented levels of user-intuitiveness, open architecture and scalability. Users are able to choose best-of-breed components as they evaluate and identify the appropriate physical security surveillance solution. Ocularis' non-proprietary, open architecture solution enables integration of video content analytics, access control, physical security and transaction systems to produce filtered, events-only video streams. The result is that fewer operators are needed to effectively monitor hundreds and thousands of cameras in control room and desktop environments, substantially reducing operating costs.

With significant advancement in human engineering, the Ocularis Client's intuitive touch-screen, map-based interface, delivers powerful investigation tools providing immediate access and response to captured events.

OnSSI's IP solutions can be found in over 22,000 deployments in a wide range of municipalities, federal and local government agencies, as well as enterprise, transportation, corporate, industrial, and educational settings. For more information, visit: www.onssi.com.

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Proximex provides security organizations an intelligent command and control solution that allows them to respond to incidents in seconds, report comprehensive incident details in minutes, and create a framework for continual enterprise awareness.

In today’s security-conscious environment, the ability to quickly detect, analyze and respond to security incidents is paramount.

Proximex leverages existing security systems and enables security teams to view, manage and control security resources from a single, centralized workstation. Unlike other integrated system tools, the Proximex solution intelligently fuses data from any number of relevant security sensors to provide information “in context.” Security teams can immediately analyze situations and dispatch the right information to the right people for immediate, intelligent response.

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Since 1987, Tech Systems has been a leading provider of integrated security solutions for a diverse group of clients throughout the United States. Tech Systems’ core competency is the design, integration, and maintenance of security products and systems for liability prevention, asset protection, and process applications.

For the past several years Tech Systems has been recognized by SDM Magazine as one of the top systems integrators in the country.