Analysis: Physical/Logical Security Convergence: Page 13 of 30

Convergence has a profound effect on both organizational and technological levels. ASIS (American Society for Industrial Security) defines security convergence as "the identification of security risks and interdependencies between business functions and processes within the enterprise, and the development of managed business process solutions to address those risks and interdependencies."

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This encompassing definition portrays the concept of convergence as an ideal or movement, yet the spirit of convergence is embodied in a word that IT departments both love and loathe: integration.

Integration means many things to many people; there have even been attempts to classify the numerous strata of integration, ranging from "loosely interfaced" to "seamlessly fused." Perusing data sheets for PACS (physical access-control system) software suites yielded a wide range of dissimilar technical integration scenarios and possibilities--everything from a simple exposed API (requiring third-party custom middleware development to link the PACS to other components) to "seamless" use of existing IT resources, such as databases and LDAP servers. Because the vendors fluctuated on their integration offerings, we relied on three distinct classifications:

» Interoperable: Two widely differing systems can talk to each other to share metadata, but still remain independent and perform separate operations.