American Alarm and Communications, Inc., Protecting the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

As an agent for American Alarm and Communications, Inc., headquartered in Arlington Massachusetts, my focus is to protect public sector departments, municipalities, properties, facilities, employees and citizens as well as commercial locations.

Below is a presentation of some of the details of how i work with my clients.

See Avigilon's HD Bullet Camera's!

We received our first Avigilon HD Bullet camera series that captures incredible detail in complete darkness with its built-in adaptive infrared (IR) illumination. 

Available in outdoor 1 MP, 2 MP, 3 MP and 5 MP resolutions, Avigilon’s HD Bullet cameras can see facial detail two times farther than average bullet cameras.  “Being able to identify faces in the dark is a huge advantage when securing your business and protecting your people,” said Rick Ramsay, senior product manager at Avigilon. “Organizations around the world operate 24 hours a day. They need discreet, high-definition surveillance that provides business intelligence and protection to operate efficiently, regardless of the time of day.”

Adaptive IR Illumination

The adaptive IR illumination automatically manages camera settings and infrared lighting to capture details in surveillance footage that are lost by cameras using static IR illumination. This unique feature also matches the illumination to the scene so security professionals can see image detail regardless of scene conditions.

Wide Dynamic Range 

The 1 MP, 2 MP and 3 MP HD Bullet cameras are also equipped with powerful in-sensor Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) capabilities, which exposes each pixel multiple times for better image quality. This feature provides security professionals with clear view of an entire scene, including areas that are brightly lit or in darkness or shadow.

Additional features of the H3 Bullet cameras include:

• Two lens options: 3-9mm and 9-22mm
• Rated for temperatures between -40 C to 50 C/ -40 F to 120 F
• Fully motorized lens for remote adjustment of focus and zoom reduces installation time
• Extra RJ45 Ethernet connection port underneath the camera assists with camera aiming during installation
• Audio connections enable two-way communication
• Digital I/O ports enable connection to external systems such as alarm input and output
• ONVIF compliant

The H3 Bullet Cameras are available now. For more information on product or demo availability please contact me at jmcdonald@americanalarm.com. 

Critical Communications in a Hospital by Stentofon

Stentofon released a whitepaper on Critical Communications in a Hospital.  Over the years I have used and sold many audio intercom solutions as they have evolved   By far the best solution has been those provided by Stentofon.  

Hospital White Paper

A good communications system is vital in a hospital environment as you all know.  The need that requests for help and support can be made quickly and questions and answers are understood clearly is paramount. The linked document takes a closer look at all aspects of communication one must consider, when providing communication solutions for hospitals.

STENTOFON offers a wide range of products and solutions that gives a voice to staff, patients and visitors. At the reception, the guardroom, in the corridors, offices or in the operating room, one can always rely on STENTOFON to provide secure communication throughout the entire facility. The STENTOFON intercom system has been proven to be an invaluable tool for daily operations and a lifesaver in critical situations.  

Drop me a line if you would like a demonstration at jmcdonald@americanalarm.com.

Great Video - RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. Surviving an Active Shooter Event

RedCloud Access Control Partners with American Alarm & Communications

Network security and building security are equally important. If either system is compromised, the organization is immediately at risk. But while many network security systems are now built to support IT best practices and standards, such as virtualization, physical access control systems (PACS) have traditionally been designed without IT professionals in mind.

As a IT Director you face the regular challenge of managing physical and virtual machines in a complex and dynamic IT environment. Implementing new technologies should not add to that burden and take you away from the top priority of ensuring high network performance, security and availability. Traditional physical access control solutions are not designed for today's IT environment, requiring numerous implementation and management hurdles to overcome.

Do you need an access control solution that meets the needs of your security counterparts without making your job harder than it already is? You need American Alarm & Communications Inc.,  new technology partner Red Cloud.

Red Cloud provides the most effective, flexible and cost-efficient platform that seamlessly integrates physical and logical access control without impacting network performance or IT staff bandwidth. Red Cloud appliances are pre-configured with a hardened Linux OS and with Open LDAP and can work within your current physical or virtual infrastructure.

Now, not only can you improve your security, but you can optimize your productivity because Red Cloud is easy to implement and manage - without taking on additional burden or cost seen with traditional PACS. No more OS and client software configuration issues, updates and viruses to address.  And because Red Cloud solutions are specifically designed with IT in mind, you can easily extend identity access management to ensure centralized, real-time management of physical access control, simplify deployment, ease administration burden, improve security and reduce infrastructure complexity.

As IT is tasked with enabling physical security teams with smarter and more efficient technology, physical access control systems need to evolve with the needs of both parties.  IT needs an open-architecture system that offers better scalability, the option to install in a virtual environment and improved options for integration with other IT and physical security systems. Not only do these technologies need to be easy to deploy, for example, in a virtual server environment, they also require the system be hardened to cyberattack while remaining completely reliable.

Meanwhile, the facilities team wants a solution that makes their lives easier. They want it to be easy to change, add or delete users from the system, they need it to allow flexibility to grant access exceptions when the situation arises, and they prefer having the ability to control door access privileges with a smartphone or mobile device, wherever they are in the building, without being tied to their desk.

A system that meet everyone’s needs not only improves their workflow, it keeps expenses down, both now and in the future. Organizations that seek out systems that bring together access control with video surveillance, identity management and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) can operate more efficiently and intelligently in all situations.

Perhaps most importantly, though, such a system brings down the barriers that have stalled the convergence of physical and logical access control systems for so long. IT no longer needs to worry about an insecure system that adds more operational overhead. And facilities staff no longer need to spend hours figuring out frustrating and confusing user interfaces. The two parties can finally work together to become more efficient and eliminate security gaps in the process, once an IT- and user-friendly building security system has been acquired.

Red Coud's key markets are:

• Higher Education
• K - 12 Education
• Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities
• Federal Government
• Municipal Government
• Enterprise Commercial Accounts, and
• Small and Medium Commercial Businesses

Who does that leave out?  No one! Don't be held hostage by your access control system.  Drop me an e-mail at jmcdonald@americanalarm.com and I will arrange a demonstration.  Red Cloud can be found on the web at www.redcloudsecurity.com.

Security Trends in K-12, Some Thoughts

For lack of staff, money, expertise, and time, school districts for the most part still can’t put a huge emphasis on education programs similar to those run in many colleges and corporations to continually remind people about the rules they need to follow when dealing with physical security and confidential data. Maybe 2013 will be the year that starts to change, especially since the Newtown, Connecticut shooting, making the mitigation of risk more palatable and far less pricey than the potential of extended legal actions.  I say this because it bothers me as a parent and a physical security professional, that we spend so much more protecting our Data Centers and Networks than we do in our schools.

The “Active Shooter Scenario” is everyone’s worst case situation, I work with this everyday in protecting hospitals (Code Silver), in malls or any other open to the public facility.  Based on all that I have read on the above incident, I do not believe that anyone could have handled that situation better than it was handled. The school staff did an outstanding job and Law Enforcement responded immediately keeping the carnage to a minimum. My point is schools do not need to be open. We can reduce access and push back the perimeter, which I believe is the only way to reduce the active shooter threat. 

Many times, when I would bring up K-12 school security enhancements I would get push back like “We want an open feeling in our schools and the employees won’t allow that.”  Hopefully what Richard Cantlupe, an American history teacher at Westglades Middle School in Parkland, Fla.: He called Newtown "our 9/11 for schoolteachers." If this is true and we can at least give our schools the same protection as our data centers will come a long way in making our schools safer.  

After 911 we had Presidential Directive 7 which was a Homeland Security Presidential Directive that established a national policy for Federal departments and agencies to identify and prioritize critical infrastructure and to protect them from terrorist attacks. The directive defines relevant terms and delivers 31 policy statements. These policy statements define what the directive covers and the roles various federal, state, and local agencies will play in carrying it out.  We need to add our schools to this list and give grant money to the school districts to get it done today.

The solution is available; it will just cost some money.  The school designs are mostly fine; we just need a few enhancements to reduce the threat, especially the perception of a school being a soft target. However you can never completely eliminate the threat completely.  I have many ideas on this issue and look forward to discussing them in future postings.  I have a check list I have used in the past that I picked up along the way that gets everyone thinking.  If you would like a copy please go to  https://dl.dropbox.com/u/62454695/k-12_School_Safety_Security_Checklist_McDonald_AACI.pdf.  If you have any questions, comment here or call anytime!

December 21, 2012 Keep your cool among the crazies.