The Optimal Building Access System is Integrated Into Your Alarm Monitoring System

If you're planning to deploy a new building access system, there is one very important factor that you must not ignore. If you accomplish alarm monitoring and access control with a single system, you're doing yourself and your company a big favor. Integration with your alarm monitoring system will provide you with many benefits:

• You'll achieve price economies by purchasing one system instead of two.
• You'll receive building access alarms on the same screen as all of your other alarms.
• You won't have to add another terminal to your NOC.
• You'll leverage your existing monitoring investment and avoid installing expensive new transport.
• You'll only have to deal with one vendor, giving you a single point of contact.

A good building access system should integrate seamlessly into your current alarm monitoring system. The entry control unit and the user input device (Keycard/Proxy reader) are installed directly at the site and require a minimal amount of space. The rest of the system is composed of a master unit and a Site Controller. The Master is a centralized monitoring unit that receives data from your Site Controllers. The Site Controller is an RTU that is deployed into the field. This unit receives data from various local sites and then forwards it on to the Master.

By integrating your building access system into your current alarm monitoring system, you are benefiting from a number of added advantages. By tying your Master into your building access, you create a centralized system. In the event that you want to change a code, simply input it into your master system and it will deliver the message downstream to your local Site Controllers.

The user profiles can also be housed in the local Site Controller and the Master. In the event that a disaster occurs and any part of the system is severed, each component of the BAS houses its own individual set of access codes. This feature is referred to as a "fault tolerant system", meaning that even in the event of a natural disaster, a communication failure will not affect access to your secured site.

"It was easy to see that if we could enhance the DPS building access, that was the way to go," he said. "We were very motivated because we like DPS. It was already everywhere, and we didn't want another terminal in our NOC."

-Dennis E.
Sr. Systems Engineer