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You blink, he winks

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CIOL Bureau
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Holes in your network, are gateways for hackers, and the same way for terrorists as Suprabhat Chatterjee, Vice President, Infrastructure & Physical Safety & Security, Cisco - India & SAARC, cautions here.

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Has security taken completely new contours today?

Security as a business is not new, it has been there for over 20 to thirty years now. What has really happened is the efficiency part. Now the right information to right people is getting compromised. The drivers are better equipment and ways. There was a need to have co-ordination between various sub-systems. Communication from the threat side, or even terrorist entities has become more sophisticated and the phenomenon of terrorism has gone global. 

With convergence etc they have moved from analog systems to IT networked platforms.

Have hotels, airports etc reacted adequately to the laser-focus of threats on to them?

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It means a lot for them when we talk of focusing on safety. It extends to archiving of data for legal purposes. What’s more important is that with the 26/11 turmoil, realization has penetrated deeper. It’s not important to just protect your own building but also have secure and fast links to the fire departments or emergency set-ups, hospitals etc. All this is critical and people have started integrating different areas and entry points.

So the security armor of such establishments encompasses many layers?

Yes. It’s a top-down, comprehensive, integrated structure that is proactive and covers many decision-making levels. That’s the orientation that Cisco’s platform for security and safety has as well. It started from prevention, detection to assessment and response levels.

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How?

Prevention is a level that should take care of intrusion detection and handles threshold stages. Then comes detection that is when the event actually happens, immediate notification of any breach in process should happen and that should be communicated back to central office with quick assessment. It could be any incident — a building on fire, a cyclone affecting the whole state or a terrorist attack. This needs absolute co-ordination with real-time communication devices. And this could be for a building, a campus, an integrated township or a city. It also transcends to decision-making levels that needs quick response by integrating various sub-systems and communication. Any incident that happens anywhere in the globe, can for instance, trigger an adequate evacuation plan or response mechanism. Response is the most critical part. One should be able to connect immediately to fire forces, para-military help or command-and-control systems.

What kind of product components make this new paraphernalia?

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Video surveillance, access control, analytics components are significant parts of the environment I am talking about. In our platform there are different building blocks. Communication is an essential ingredient and that’s where network becomes critical. Co-ordination with various sensors and communication devices is key. Cisco has joined forces with a large ecosystem of partners to integrate state of the art video surveillance, sensors, applications, and communication systems onto an emergency-class voice, video, and data IP Network to help customers transform the way that they build their physical safety and security infrastructure.

And how would this be different from others?

Our differentiator factors are efficiency, cost-savings, time-savings, collaboration and effectiveness. A holistic approach to security makes all the difference. Cisco physical security products support the company’s vision of a single unified security product suite that enables integration with all security operations within the IP network, and with many non security applications.

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Where does the network part fit in? Is it full proof?

It’s not full-proof, but it’ about how you design the whole architecture and take care of redundancies at various levels.

How is India changing?

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India, specially as a scurity market is expanding very rapidly with surveillance, border control level measures etc. Overall security market is growing at 25 per cent, and electronic security market is changing rapidly.

What’s happening on the government front?

Government is extremely cautious about the whole security issue, specially in new cities, focus is on security and community exchanges. Government segment is spending huge amount of money.

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Can you share the adoption curve or some names that have started embracing it?

Among our international customers, some names in the government segment include City of Canoas, Brazil and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The city of Canoas, in Rio Grande do Sul, for example has implemented a video monitoring system chosing the Cisco Video Surveillance Manager, an open architecture and interoperable security-management software solution that integrates audio and video in an Internet Protocol (IP)-based platform. The initiative which entails about $2.1 mn, is part of the Safer Canoas project developed by the Office of Integrated Management, composed of the military police, civil police, federal road traffic police and municipal guard. The main objectives are to reduce crime rates and enhance communication among police agencies, enabling them to act with more speed, synchronization and efficiency. By 2012, 120 cameras will be scattered around the greater metropolitan region of Porto Alegre. Initially, 27 of them will be placed on selected streets, 32 in public buildings, eight at Parque Eduardo Gomes and seven at City Park Getúlio Vargas. The images will be monitored by a central high-technology facility installed in a room at the municipality's Office of Integrated Management. Up to 30 terabytes of data can be stored.

What other customer segments are hitting the adoption curve?

Casinos, education, transportation, townships, it’s all happening.  Some customer names that I can cite here are Amtrak, SAN JOSE (Transportation), Route 66 Casino, SAN JOSE (Casinos and gaming), Eastside Cannery Casino, Las Vegas ( again Casinos and gaming), Auckland Airport, New Zealand (Aviation Security), Council Rock School District, Pennsylvania (Education), Queens College, New York (Education) and Loughborough University, England (Education).