Electronic Access Control Systems (EACS)
Redundancy and high availability with Evidian SafeKit
What is an electronic access
control system (EACS)?
Electronic access control systems consist of hardware devices that control entry into any private premises.
Theft breaches and break-ins are common crimes in business environments. Electronic access control systems are widely used because of that.
Why an EACS software
is critical?
EACS software manages hardware devices, and it denies entry to unauthorized users or raises alarms on intrusion by thieves or criminals.
The safety of people is directly associated with the proper execution of the EACS software.
And that's why the system must always be available to security officers who must react immediately to the slightest incident.
Key players list
in EACS
According this analyst report, the key players in EACS are:
- dormakaba Holding (Switzerland)
- ASSA ABLOY (Sweden)
- Johnson Controls (Ireland)
- Allegion plc (Ireland)
- Honeywell International (US)
- Identiv Inc. (US)
- Nedap N.V. (Netherlands)
- Suprema HQ (South Korea)
- Thales Group (France)
- Bosch Security Systems (Germany)
- NEC Corporation (Japan)
- IDEMIAs (France)
- HID (US)
- TIL Technologies (France)
Redundancy and high availability at the application level
In this type of solution, only application data are replicated. And only the application is restared in case of failure.
With this solution, restart scripts must be written to restart the application. This solution is platform agnostic and works with applications inside physical machines, virtual machines, in the Cloud. Any hypervisor is supported (VMware, Hyper-V...).
Examples
- Video management: Milestone (Management, SQL, Log, Event)/SafeKit
- Video management: Genetec (SQL)/SafeKit
- Access control: Nedap (AEOS, SQL)/SafeKit
- New application (restart scripts to write): Windows, Linux
Redundancy and high availability at the virtual machine level
In this type of solution, the EACS software is put inside a virtual machine. The full Virtual Machine (VM) is replicated and restarted (Application + OS).
The advantage of this solution is that there is no restart scripts to write per application. This solution is generic for any EACS software. It works with Windows/Hyper-V and Linux/KVM but not with VMware. This is an active/active solution with several virtual machines replicated and restarted between two nodes.
Examples
- Building management: Siemens Desigo CC/SafeKit
- Video management and access control: Siemens Siveillance suite/SafeKit
- New application (no restart script to write): Windows/Hyper-V, Linux/KVM
More comparison between VM HA vs Application HA
Built-in Hyper-V replication
- Asynchronous replication => data loss
- Manual failover (no automatic failover)
- Not a high availability solution
Microsoft clustering (same as VMware HA)
- Requires a shared disk
- Price of the shared disk and its installation (SAN, iSCSI)
- Configuration complexity of Windows failover cluster (AD…)
- Remote sites = replicated storage
Evidian SafeKit
- Simple and economical
- Synchronous replication => no data loss
- Automatic failover and failback
- No shared disk
- Free trial and quick installation guide
Milestone has chosen SafeKit
SafeKit is deployed in 30+ countries with the video management software of Milestone.
SafeKit is validated by Milestone for redundancy and high availability of the management server.
SafeKit is the best solution because it is purely software, completely hardware-agnostic.
Solution preferred by Siemens
SafeKit is available in the Siemens marketplace with its Siveillance suite (video and access control) and with its SCADA software: Desigo CC (building management), SIMATIC WinCC, SIMATIC PCS 7.
SafeKit is deployed by Siemens in Australia, France, the Netherlands, Qatar, Switzerland, the UAE, the UK, the US.
SafeKit recommended by Nedap
Nedap, a key player in physical access control, recommends SafeKit for redundancy and high availability of its AEOS application.
The Nedap/SafeKit solution is available with a free trial and a quick installation guide.
TIL Technologies has chosen SafeKit
SafeKit is deployed in 100+ customer sites by TIL Technologies for access control and building management.
SafeKit is the high availability option of MICROSESAME.
Innovation award in Video Management Software
Readers of Benchmark Magazine (specialized in physical security systems for resellers & SI) have voted for SafeKit as an innovation in Video Management Software.
This award shows the importance of redundancy in security offerings.
Partners, the success with SafeKit
This platform agnostic solution is ideal for a partner reselling a critical application and who wants to provide a redundancy and high availability option easy to deploy to many customers.
With many references in many countries won by partners, SafeKit has proven to be the easiest solution to implement for redundancy and high availability of building management, video management, access control, SCADA software...