Where we have covered single product areas elsewhere on the site (such as CCTV, Access Control, and Intruder Alarms), Integrated Systems will cover systems that are fundamentally multi-discipline, ie systems which integrate multiple security management functions, for example addressing both access control and intruder alarms requirements.

There are, however, various levels of interoperability and integration.

Over and above systems that integrate more than one security discipline, some systems have developed specific high-level interface packages to third party systems, to achieve a single graphical user interface.  This approach then brings rise to compatibility issues, based on the applications that have been developed.

Using IT industry protocols, such as OPC and XML, further integration can be achieved for sharing of information, for systems that have been developed with an open architecture.

Research into integrated systems continues to determine how we could best address compatibility issues for the various levels of system integration, and we hope to extend our product search engine in the near future to consider these alternatives.