Anixter, a founding member of the Open Network Video Interface Forum (ONVIF) and one of five member companies in the organization's Technical Services Committee Standards group, announced that ONVIF will extend its scope to include the development of a physical access control standard. The announcement came in the middle of a three-day ONVIF developer's plugfest hosted by Anixter at its Infrastructure Solutions Lab in Glenview, IL.
Jonas Andersson, chair of the ONVIF steering committee, stated, "By extending the ONVIF scope to include access control systems, we now take a step further to facilitate the integration of IP-based security and safety devices using a global open standard."
"The goal of the scope extension is to create a global network interface standard for access control devices as well as to ensure interoperability between network video products and access control systems," Anixter said when making the announcement. "Many companies, including several ONVIF members, see a great need for such a standard as it would bring benefits to system integrators, device manufacturers and end-users alike."
Anixter outlined the benefit to each of these groups as follows.
- System integrators benefit from increased flexibility, which enables them to design integrated solutions based on best-of-breed products from different manufacturers.
- Manufacturers benefit from better market penetration by providing futureproof devices with standard netwotk interfaces.
- End-users benefit from reduced integration costs and lower cost of ownership.
When announcing the broadening of ONVIF's scope to include an access control standard, Anixter stated that it "understands the importance standards and open technologies play in the adoption of emerging technologies. As opposed to reacting to new standards and technical advancements, Anixter is taking a hands-on approach to the development of open standards. By serving as a technical resource for its customers, Anixter is proud to be a part of ONVIF's strategy for an open and global technical standard."
The Anixter-hosted plugfest is the first such ONVIF event to be hosted in the United States; previous plugfests took place in Tokyo, Japan and Stuttgart, Germany. The event is an opportunity for manufacturers to test the integration of IP cameras and video management system (VMS) software at the logical and protocol layers. Anixter's vice president of emerging technologies Pete Lockhart said his company "is committed to maintaining a leadership role in the standardization of network video products in the security market. The Anixter-hosted plugfest ensures products meet the design and performance specifications required to ensure interoperability of physical security devices."