GENETEC’S Synergis Master Controller, currently installed at more than a dozen key customer sites around the world as part of a limited availability program, is designed to address what Genetec says is longstanding customer demand for non-proprietary access control solutions.
Synergis is a big deal not just for Genetec but for the access control industry and integrated management solutions as well. While we’ve not had a demo yet – this is a paper-only preview, Genetec’s play in this area must be considered seriously.
Synergis provides real-time monitoring of access events and alarms, as well as cardholder management and reporting. The system enables users to handle thousands of access events in real-time and centrally manage and configure cardholders and credentials across multiple distributed sites. To achieve this, SMC will offer native support of widely-deployed and non-proprietary access control hardware from leading vendors, including HID Global and Mercury Security.
When deployed with Genetec’s Security Center, the Synergis Master Controller will provide even greater efficiency and control of a security system. The Security Center platform unifies security applications and key operating tasks to enable users to manage access control, video surveillance and third party systems from within a single interface. Unification of access control and video also ensures that all access control events, alarms, and reports are associated with both recorded and live video.
With the addition of the SMC to the Synergis access control product line, Genetec’s customers will now have more flexibility when designing a solution to suit their particular needs, installation environment, and budget. Thanks to a new technology partnership with Mercury Security and a long-standing relationship with HID Global, customers will be able to leverage SMC’s open architecture and choose from a growing array of industry-standard reader interface modules, input modules, and output modules.
Above and beyond new system installations, the Synergis Master Controller will be ideally suited for customers who are looking to modernize an existing installation. It will allow them to leverage their corporate or security network to transition to a fully IP-based access control system.
The SMC will also facilitate their migration to Genetec’s unified security platform, Security Center, bringing the benefits of access control and video unification to a wider audience while leveraging much of their existing infrastructure such as readers, interface modules and wiring. Moving to an open and extremely flexible option like the SMC will ensure their investment is protected for the lifetime of their access control system.
“With the launch of SMC, we are enhancing our Synergis enterprise class access control solution to bring more openness to a traditionally closed and proprietary sector of the security industry.
“Unlike most access systems on the market that only support a single brand of modules, the SMC is designed to be an open platform that simultaneously supports multiple hardware vendors,” explains Jimmy Palatsoukas, senior manager of product marketing at Genetec.
“This way, we are making it possible for customers to choose best-of-breed hardware based on their needs, while knowing that they avoided the pitfalls of proprietary systems.”
Integrated cloud solution
As if this wasn’t enough, alongside SMC, Genetec is also developing hosted security solutions including video surveillance, access control and license plate recognition (LPR) as a service that will be built on Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud-computing platform.
“Just as we pioneered IP video 15 years ago, we are now breaking new ground by using advanced cloud technology to make video and security applications (including access control) even more accessible and meaningful for companies of all sizes,” says Pierre Racz, Genetec’s CEO.
“By working closely with Microsoft we are able to take advantage of its robust cloud-based development platform, Windows Azure, as a central part of our strategy to bring market-leading video surveillance, access control and license plate recognition to a broader user-base.
“As the leader in the world’s largest security surveillance market, we are uniquely positioned to bring a ‘built-for-the-cloud’ solution to both our existing integrators and users and to a whole new market that is looking for simple, ubiquitous, and powerful security tools.”
Genetec says integrators will be able to take advantage of streamlined and greatly simplified set-up, provisioning and install procedures, meaning they can on-board more customers, more easily, and with greater initial satisfaction.
Meanwhile, end users will benefit from the ease of use, availability, and lower cost of ownership. Security assets (including video, access, and related critical data) will be automatically stored in the cloud so that they can be easily reused, retrieved, and analyzed anytime, anywhere.
Users will be able to roll-out and configure security systems and upgrades without disruption, and take advantage of world-class data centres to reduce IT burden and costs. They will also benefit from built-in, accessible and flexible online payment and administration processes from within one hosted solution.
