System Health and Maintenance

Installation, Upgrades, Maintenance, and Health Monitoring

Deploying a security and safety system includes more than just installing hardware and software, especially in large multi-site deployments where upgrades and maintenance can be complicated, time consuming and resource intensive. With the Security Center, we’ve taken the concept of a security system’s lifecycle, from installation to maintenance and updates, to the next level. Customer feedback and a review of every day security operations have given light to a product where maintenance and deployment is just as important as a rich set of user features such as viewing video, visitor management, and license plate matching, among others.

In-service upgrades, software and hardware backward compatibility, and advanced health monitoring all come into play at various stages; they ensure your system is up and running as fast as possible and that it remains healthy for years to come. More significantly, these Security Center basic features not only benefit larger deployments, but also single-server systems with just a few cameras, LPR units, and door controllers. Regardless of the size of your system, you will experience the benefits.

Security Center's healh monitoring role allows the configuration of health event and tresholds adapted to a system's requirements. Click to view a larger version.

Key Features

• One generic service, Genetec server, is installed on all Security Center servers. Every Security Center server becomes a generic computing resource capable of taking on any role (archiving, managing door controllers, cameras, LPR units, and so on) you assign to it.
• Central configuration of all your servers, services, and roles.
• Easily move roles from server to server as your system expands or when you need to balance the load across several machines.
• Remote configuration of Security Center components and databases without using remote desktops.
• Support for phased upgrades with a Directory that can support earlier versions of Roles and Security Desk, the monitoring client application.
• Advanced real-time health monitoring with embeddreported system health and statistics reporting capabilities.
• A variety of in-house and third-party failover options to ensure the system is up and running at all times.
• Forward and backward compatible Federation host lets you install or upgrade software at remote locations without having to upgrade the central Federation server.
• One-step application of software patches.

Simplified Installation and Software Deployment

Events can trigger alarms when CPU usage reach performance tresholds, ensuring immediate actions can be taken to protect the system's integrity. CLick to view a larger version.

Installing security software can be as trivial or as complicated as the underlying architecture. If multiple servers, Windows services, components, and client applications are required, then mistakes can happen. Security Center’s architecture simplifies the deployment of new software. You install a generic Windows service (Genetec Server) on every security server, and then you centrally configure Roles hosted on these servers. Roles provide an identity to the server and execute specific tasks such as archiving or unit management. With a generic single service, you never have to worry about installing the wrong service; and you can always reassign roles without having to uninstall and reinstall elsewhere.

With only two client applications to deploy, one for monitoring/reporting and another for configuration, installation is further simplified. The same client applications are used for monitoring and running reports for your video, LPR, and access control systems. As you integrate other systems such as intrusion detection and asset management, you are not saddled with dozens of client applications, rather all systems are monitored and managed from a single unified interface.

Advanced Health Monitoring

Events can be configured for any Security Center role, including Access Manager, Archiver and Directory. Click to view a larger version.

Monitoring the health and up-time of your security system is crucial. If the system is not running or is sluggish, then your security can be severely compromised. This is why health monitoring is a key feature of Security Center, which includes a dedicated engine whose sole purpose is to monitor the system and trigger events and warnings.

Basic health-related features include:

• A Health Monitoring role that tracks the health of the entire system in real-time.
• Logging of health events and warnings for all basic components (roles, services, client apps, and access/video/LPR units).
• Populating the Windows Event Log with health-related events.
• Configuration of event and warning thresholds.
• Prioritization of events and warnings, including visual cues in the client apps.
• Calculation of statistics and availability of client applications, servers, as well as units.
• Health Monitoring reporting task and Health History report.
• Health events are accessible from the SDK for integration to third-party health monitoring solutions.

Many Failover Options

As with any critical business system, the Security Center needs to be up and running at all times. The Security Center supports both in-house and third-party failover options. Failover Directory and Failover Archiver are Genetec-developed failover options. NEC ExpressCluster ® and Windows Clustering are also available. Either way, the tools and the support is there to keep your system running and healthy even during a failure.

Seamlessly Scalable Solution

The Health Statistics task provides detailed reports of health events and warnings. Click to view a larger version.

As your system grows, simply add new servers to take on the added burden of more readers, cameras, and LPR units. Roles can also be moved around, while servers can be dedicated to specific tasks. For example, if you are monitoring tens of thousands of input points and have enabled thousands of complex IO linking rules, you can leave that role as is or move it to a dedicated server to lessen any impact on the rest of the system. This type of flexibility is directly related to the level of server and component distribution that is available with the Security Center architecture, which is unlike any other product on the market.

In-Service Upgrades

You don’t have to upgrade your entire Security Center platform when a new version is available. Just upgrade your Directory and configuration client, and leave the rest of your system components including Archivers, Access Managers, LPR Managers, and Security Desk client applications in place. Then, update your other components as required. You can choose to upgrade in one step or over multiple phases. The Security Center doesn’t drive your upgrade schedule, you do.

Backward and Forward Compatibility

Backward and forward compatibility doesn’t end with standalone systems. Within a Federation setup, you can upgrade remote independent sites with the latest version of Security Center, while your Federation host remains at an older version. In scenarios such as city-wide surveillance or central monitoring of many sites, this is a crucial feature. Every add-on can force the Federation server to remain in lock-step with any installations in the field, causing an endless cycle of upgrades. With Security Center, this doesn’t have to be the case. Once again, the Security Center doesn’t drive your upgrade schedule, you do.

Seamless Patching Process

Software patches and fixes are part of the world of software. With every patch, your system is improved and issues are resolved, whether you’ve experience them or not. With single-click patch installation, installing a fix is quick and easy, and more importantly, automated. Keep track of installed patches in the Windows list of installed applications, and uninstall with a single click should the need arise.