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In The Boardroom With...

Mr. Christian Matthews
Director of Product Management for IoT Software

Cisco


SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Thank you for joining us today, Christian. Before discussing Internet of Things, or IoT, physical security in greater detail, please tell us about your role at Cisco.

Christian Matthews: My responsibilities cover product management of Cisco’s IoT Physical Security solution portfolio, which includes IP cameras, video analytics, and management software. These provide broad network-centric capabilities in video surveillance, IP camera integration, access control, and incident response.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What do you see as the main benefits of IoT for security systems? How can they enhance security and safety systems?

Christian Matthews: A network-centric systems approach to IoT has begun to dramatically affect physical security. The opportunity reaches well beyond simply connecting new sensors and information sources. Integration of sensors and controllers is a necessary step and serves as a foundation for generating all the information to transform customers' business processes. For safety and security systems, the integration results in enhanced accuracy, responsiveness, automation, and scale.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Can you provide some examples of current Cisco customers that are realizing these results in their organizations today?

Christian Matthews: Simply monitoring high-value assets provides a general example. Video surveillance combined with other sensor output such as audio, motion, or building contacts is used to increase protection and monitor assets without constant human supervision. Threats of incidents are detected and the risks mitigated by alerting personnel or automatically initiating preventative actions.

When combined with advance video analytics, benefits continue to grow. At the University of San Francisco (USF), IP cameras and the Cisco Video Surveillance Manager deliver facial recognition to detect when unauthorized individuals enter an area and then notify appropriate staff.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) use Cisco’s IoT Physical Security solutions to increase effectiveness of the transit police. With better intelligence, first responders and their associated operations teams have increased productivity substantially. They have done this at scale with a centralized command center managing more than 1700 remotely deployed IP cameras. Recently the system has been extended across busses and emergency response vehicles.

In areas such as smart cities, Cisco is partnering with AGT. Surveillance cameras, motion sensors, and environmental monitoring devices provide increased public safety as well as traffic management and smart street lighting. Direct benefits include lower crime rates, better use of operating budgets, and savings from reduced energy consumption.

HCA has implemented a solution called Virtual Patient Observation that does patient monitoring for ICU patients. Motion or video analytics can detect and notify nursing staff when a patient tries to get out of bed or leaves a defined area rather than constant monitoring of video streams. The system helps improves patient care and staff effectiveness.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What are the unique characteristics of Cisco’s offering that have driven adoption with customers like the ones you mentioned?

Christian Matthews: With deployments in industries such as education, municipalities, transportation, airports and ports, retail, healthcare, and utilities, Cisco Physical Security solutions meet the uncompromising needs of today’s safety and security professionals. Using the network as an open, scalable platform for integrating security additionally delivers operational flexibility, lower cost of ownership, and reduced risk. Further, the advanced video analytics capabilities distributed throughout the network automate previously manual and costly processes, driving business transformation. Lastly, the integration of IoT devices delivers new levels of intelligence and situational awareness.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Any there particular new developments you would like to talk about?

Christian Matthews: The next release of our management system, VSM, will be shipping this quarter and includes several important enhancements such as customer-driven user experience workflows and video dewarping for 360-degree cameras. We have also added new models and software features to the IP camera portfolio. Most recently, we have released two new DSP-enabled cameras capable of running a full video analytics package at the edge, as well as advanced applications. Analytics enable many advanced safety and security solutions, as well as IoT sensor/controller integration.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What resources are available at Cisco.com for the IoT community?

Christian Matthews: A great starting point for an overview of the IoT Physical Security solution may be found at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/physical-security/index.html.
We also work closely with our customers and partners to capture best practices and the most effective methodologies. A rich array of case studies in segments ranging from public safety to transportation can be found at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/physical-security/customer-case-study.html.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Thank you again for joining us today, Christian.