Physical and cyber convergence

Empowered facility managers
Co-operation between business disciplines that have previously been unattached is usually greeted as progress. In the physical security sector, convergence with cyber security has been both a natural spin-off and a stated aim of facility managers.

Merging processes and sharing infrastructure produces both logistical and economic benefits. Once a principal contractor has secured a tender, SCS will accompany the contractor to client meetings early in the design process of new-build projects.

Risk management, whether it relates to protecting a site from intruders or breaches of protocol by staff, now runs parallel with maintaining the integrity of data and ensuring data is not stolen. The most innovative senior managers are interdisciplinary; they recognize the complexity of threats and that best practice must draw on many operating areas and skill sets. SCS can position turnkey contractors as vigilant in this area.

The threat perspective has changed and working practices must adapt. A new generation of security installers who are more at home with structured cabling and shared resources than rolls of coax has emerged. Integrators with more conventional backgrounds (who may not necessarily be older) have a vital role to play in ensuring that the fundamental optics of lenses – unchanged since the days of Galileo – still form part of project design so that image quality is ensured.

A hybrid ideal
An ideal installation design engineer will be a hybrid of these two types. If it is IT managers who call the shots on new-build projects then it is up to senior physical security designers to make sure that IP video surveillance is not distrusted and dismissed as a ‘black art’. Similarly, harnessing access control to work in true collaboration with CCTV is a major step towards the already over-hyped prospect of the truly ‘intelligent building’.