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Milestone and ONVIF Support Offer Innovation Platform for Latest Functionality and Interoperabililty

April 1, 2017
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Milestone Systems has built its market leadership on the principle of open standards for video management software. Open standards are the key to enabling thousands of different types of cameras to transmit video in and out from its video management software (VMS).

Open standards, combined with seamless interoperability, are increasingly becoming not just a differentiator but a necessity as a wider range of devices are being required to work together.

ONVIF standards act as the baseline for this very necessary interoperability. However, a great deal more work is needed by device vendors and VMS providers to make systems work seamlessly from Day One. – Henrik Sydbo Hansen, Head of Camera Partner Program (CaPP) at Milestone Systems

Milestone has prided itself on its ability to take video feeds from most IP cameras and encoders (linked to traditional CCTV cameras) available in the market. Its sustained open standards approach over more than a dozen years, means that today Milestone supports nearly 6,000 camera models and an increasing array of other network devices.

Most of these devices are ONVIF-standards compliant. However, for Milestone, ONVIF-compliance is just the start of a journey to ensure optimal interoperability between devices and its platform.

We are going much further, working towards ensuring that all functionality within new devices is working optimally on Milestone’s VMS platform.  We are also increasing the pace at which we register, test, validate and certify all features of a new device, ensuring that they all work to their full potential via our platform.” – Henrik Sydbo Hansen

Milestone is even developing a platform for automation of these testing and validation processes so vendors will be able to validate systems earlier in the development cycle. This means that security innovations can be brought to the end user that much more quickly. Speed to market is becoming a key requirement which Milestone is now helping to drive so end users get access to innovations (and their resulting efficiencies) faster.

We are seeing an explosion of innovation at the edge. We recognise that cameras today are much more feature-rich than they used to be. We are now seeing edge-based storage, multi-streaming, as well as video analytics capabilities including motion detection and tripwire features, generating multiple metadata, video, and audio data streams. Milestone must ensure that all this data is properly managed, secured, recorded – triggering accurate event-based alerts for rapid reaction on the ground when necessary. Our focus now is to validate all this new device functionality (to ensure compatibility with Milestone) more thoroughly and more quickly than ever before. – Henrik Sydbo Hansen

For end users, all this work in the background ensures that the systems they are procuring are working as specified and that new improvements in device functionality are made available to them more quickly than was previously possible. It might be about enabling field agents to view live and recorded camera images from their smartphones or tablets on the move. It could instead be about extending the value of an existing CCTV camera estate so cameras also become ANPR readers, flagging up license plates of drivers who have not paid insurance or road tax.

Milestone is now building toward being the platform of choice for manufacturers and systems integrators who want to be first-to-market with new integration offerings and feature sets. That means when end users see Milestone XProtect in a new specification, they know they have the platform of choice for innovation.

Added-value features like audio in and out, cyber security protections, edge-based storage and metadata, will be areas of focus detailed in regular Milestone device pack updates through 2017 and beyond. Integrators can expect to see these sorts of feature sets on new devices being fully validated and certificated by Milestoneand our community partners, faster than ever before.

By pumping more focus and resources into automating more of this activity, we also want to put Milestone into a position to focus our integration team on more specialist, tailored integration work – working more closely with strategic partners operating right at the cutting-edge of IP security. – Henrik Sydbo Hansen

Henrik concludes by asking end users to pose a few questions of the VMS and device providers being considered in their next specification:

  1. Do they test and validate each camera model they claim to support?
  2. Do they openly publish exact information on the level of ONVIF support, complete with firmware revisions for specific devices planned or in place already?
  3. Do they issue regular updates to device drivers?
  4. Are the camera manufacturers’ ONVIF-supported, device-specific features also fully supported and documented by the VMS?

Only if the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’, can they be sure that they will not run into trouble when they, or their chosen integrator, try to bring new devices onto their VMS platform. Tests need to be run at both camera end and on the VMS platform with full documentation available for download.

In summary, end users  who want to take advantage of the efficiencies that come with the convergence of previously disparate security systems; to deploy the latest analytics-smart devices; to tighten cybersecurity around physical security systems; or perhaps simply to ensure they can view usable video ‘on the move’, should be ensuring that the hardware and software providers they are specifying are not only ONVIF-compliant but fully-tested at both the device and VMS providers for that compliance, feature set by feature set. All necessary interoperability needs to have been fully tested, certified and publicly-documented to avoid being a guinea pig as innovations come out thick and fast over the coming years.

by Jos Svendsen, Corporate Communications Manager EMEA, Milestone Systems

Viewpoints: Milestone Insider

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My phone in my pocket is my office no matter where I am in the wild. Milestone Mobile makes me powerful. Policing has been reactive but this integrative technology moves it to proactive.

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Artificial Intelligence is the next evolution of video analytics, but instead of building algorithms around something that we’re looking at, we’re building systems that actually learn what’s happening, on the fly.

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Mike Sherwood Dir. Technical Services, Milestone

What most customers are looking for is interoperability; openness to work with multiple cameras; switches; servers; integration with access control and other third-party products; and to do all of that reliably. It allows the customer to feel like they aren’t being cornered, they aren’t being put into a proprietary-type situation that they might regret later.

Brent Edmunds President and Co-Founder, Stone Security

While the total solution should be the focus of any installation, there is risk in deploying a complete end-to-end solution from a single manufacturer as you may not be leveraging the best technology for each functional requirement. In addition, tackling a full solution as a single project adds complexity and introduces installation challenges which can ultimately lead to issues with customer satisfaction.

Mike Sherwood Milestone Systems Americas Director of Technical Operations

The Internet has been one of the most important inventions of modern life and has provided a foundation for innovations that we now rely on. Interestingly, this level of reliance on the Internet has only come about within the last 10 years with the introduction of the full screen smart phone. Indeed, standards can move slowly, even once they have seen full adoption it still takes time for innovation. But once innovation starts, it is exponential in growth, and to support this growth you must have a solid foundational standard.

Mike Sherwood Milestone Systems Americas Director of Technical Operations

The world is changing quickly — and with change comes opportunity. The power of multiple partnerships offers customers a fully integrated solution. With close co-development and teamwork, we provide countless solutions for integrated video management.

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My goal is moving from Hartford as a Safe City to helping it become a Smart City. With the Milestone open platform we are moving beyond crime to improving the city’s economy, bringing in more business via marketing intelligence, traffic management, better snow removal, etc.

Sgt Jonmichael O’Hare Capital City Crime Center (C4)

Milestone sees the artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies as creating hyper growth markets by enabling IoT software companies to aggregate large numbers of connected devices and integrate them to form a new smart systems automation market. Milestone is prioritizing our technology roadmaps to capture these hyper growth opportunities. Several innovative technology investment areas will be delivered over the coming years.

Kenneth Hune Petersen Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Milestone Systems

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