Genetec's Security Center integrates with intrusion panels

MONTREAL—Genetec's unified security platform, Security Center 5.0, can for the first time integrate with intrusion panels, the company announced May 18.

“We've integrated with intrusion panels before, but it's always been a custom integration,” said Jimmy Palatsoukas, Genetec senior product manager. “Now it's an off-the-shelf feature.”

The company announced the integration with Bosch GV2 and GV3 models. “We work with several systems integrators who are Bosch-certified and they requested this panel.”

Next, Genetec will integrate the Honeywell Galaxy panel for the European market. For North America, it has been asked to integrate Honeywell's Vista panel, DMP and DSC. “In the future, we will have a list of panels we integrate with,” he said.

The Security Center 5.0 is not a PSIM, but it has “many common features you see in a PSIM,” Palatsoukas said.

“It's different because under the hood, we have our own video and access control systems, although we do integrate with third-party video and access too,” he explained. “You take the video and the access and you bring in the third-party intrusion and it begins to look like PSIM, but PSIM typically has more customization. We prefer to deliver off the shelf [capabilities] because it costs less. We can customize, but in most cases, we don't.”

The system gives users one platform to manage and monitor their video, access and intrusion detection systems. It has a “federation” feature that allows users to run reports on intrusion, video and access control alerts across hundreds of remote sites, regardless of how the system architecture is designed, with one central Security Center controlling many remote sites, or many remote sites with independent unified security platforms at each site.

The system also enables video verification of intrusion alarms, which is particularly handy when there is not a security guard on premise, Palatsoukas said.

“This integration will open up opportunities for our dealers to provide additional capabilities for their end customers, especially in large commercial or high security uses,” said Tom Melcher, product marketing manager for Bosch.