Version 5 Objectives

Version 5 is a very major revision to EnterpriseSMS.  There are certain broad objectives that we want to achieve in this release.  These include:

Standards Focus
ICS is positioning EnterpriseSMS to fully comply with the evolving metamodel for security applications as articulated by the Security Industry Association.  This metamodel is the foundation for the Association’s Standards Development Program and it is intended to be a fully standards compliant product as the Association’s standards activities come to completion. 
A number of emerging standards are applicable to EnterpriseSMS including:

• ANSI/OSIPS Framework -01-200x: Framework foundation for all standards
• ANSI/OSIPS-DV-01-2008: Digital Video Interface covering video servers of all types and video analytics)
• ANSI/OSIPS-IDM-01-200x:   Identity and Carrier Management including FIPS 201 related Standards
• ANSI/OSIPS-ACR-01-200x:  Access Control Role defining the identity authentication and  access control privilege calculation for physical and logical access control
• ANSI/OSIPS-APC-01-200x: Access Point Controller defining the provisioning and communications with collections of access points
• ANSI/OSIPS-ACGO-01-200x: Access Control Gate Operations defining the configuration and operation of access control gates, especially those that process vehicles
• A variety of FIPS standards including FIPS 104 and FIPS 140

Product Repositioning
Based on a substantial review of market conditions and the observed industry migration towards a more IT-centric business model, ICS is repositioning EnterpriseSMS as the solution for command and control requirements for Enterprise Class systems.  We are implementing support for 3rd party system interfaces that are non-provisioning in addition to traditional middleware applications like the ESMS Access SIM.  The Enterprise Command Station (ECS) is evolving to support both ESMS applications and other third party applications from a common console.  Many new capabilities are being integrated into ESMS.  ICS will continue to provide complete access control support with the introduction of the OSC II based on the VertX platform by HID Global and the introduction of an eAccessControlSystem product, a web deployed pure access control system for very small to moderate sized systems.  It is fully integrable with EnterpriseSMS enterprise class solutions. 

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Operating Environments
ICS is implementing a major update to the operating environment of ESMS components in Version 5. First, EnterpriseSMS is moving from its Version 4 environment to a VisualStudio.net development environment where most development is managed C# code.  We are adding back Linux for the VertX and will later release a Linux middleware application that will support network accessible access control and intrusion detection  devices.  Version 5 may be deployed on Windows Server and Windows XP Pro.  (Version 6 will add Vista as a supported environment.)
Our database is Oracle 10.g.2 in Version 5.  Additionally, we are introducing Oracle Xpress, a lighter weight free database to handle distributed data sets synchronized by the master database.  An innovative data distribution scheme that optimizes network resources, reduces data synchronization tasks by OLTP applications, increases application availability in being implemented in Version 5.  Redundant systems may now have calibrated levels of redundancy depending on the available infrastructure within the enterprise. 
We eliminate MKS Nutcracker products in Version 5.  While useful and a good product, it has not maintained currency with the environmental requirements of our applications and is no longer in use by ICS.  Additionally, cTree is to be largely eliminated.
Thus, we are moving to an installation approach that is network based, i.e., remote system components are installed from a server on the enterprise’s network.  By Release 5.2, all installs and upgrades will be accomplished in this fashion.  Remote component upgrades may be accomplished by users if they are authorized to perform them, or they may be performed remotely or automatically.  Improvements in the license administration process will be incorporated in this version to ease the management of licenses for administrators, especially in distributed environments. 

Self-Healing
We have studied problems that we have been involved in resolving for customers on a customer support basis.  A few pattern behaviors were identified allowing a designs goal for Version 5 to make EnterpriseSMS completely self healing in that each module is to be sufficiently intelligent so that it can detect its own problems and fix them.  When it fails to do this, other supervisory modules will detect module problems and implement corrections.  This approach should eliminate and /or reduce down times in any module. 
The existing PROMON (process monitoring) modules are being upgraded as a part of this process.  Further, there is a significant effort to expand the diagnostic tools available to system administrators and expose all available details about the system configuration in user friendly forms.  The Remote Diagnostic Client is an application wide tool for diagnosing and controlling any EnterpriseSMS software module anywhere.  This product supports a multi-lingual user interface that is provided with the core services component.  It may be installed and run from anywhere and is free.

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Integrated Geospatial Data
Over the last two years, ICS has made a major commitment to a highly flexible user interface for reporting geospatially encoded data.  As a part of this activity, mobile device tracking interfaces and support for geospatial data sources and applications will be expanded in Version 5. 

New Markets and New Technologies
Version 5 will introduce a major extension of EnterpriseSMS.  In this release the monitoring and control of Allen-Bradley family programmable controllers, and any Modbus and Modbus RTU protocol devices is supported.  An extensive array of configuration tools allows users to implement a variety of dead band rules, calibration rules, event definitions, and specialized calculations. 
Additionally, in Version 5 we are implementing support for monitoring and control of SNMP communicating devices to include infrastructure components from routers, switches, and computers to UPS, TVSS, serial servers, and any other such device.  This extension is a part of our infrastructure management development where we will also be tracking the structured cabling that connects all of these devices and the system components.