IPSecurityWatch.com |

Blue screen of death? Hard reboot? Ctrl-Alt-Delete? It's part of life with PCs and could be part of life with a PC-based security system.

stock.xchng/zweettooth

This article is about preparedness and prevention. What I am presenting to you, could literally save your camera monitoring function and endless hours of work for you and your staff.

Computer "Issues":

There are basically three essential root issues to a computer malfunction. These include, the most basic, which is hardware failure that commonly occurs with the hard-drive or the power supply.

Secondly, software incompatibility can occur with the operating system software, an added software application or a combination of the two. A software incompatibility can manifest itself through a security officer's personal video game that they loaded on the security department's computer or it could be an officially installed third-party program. In addition, network environments can cause issues with the accessibility of network drives, computer functionality and this literally can bring the fastest computer to a crawl.

User-error also accounts for a number of problems, such as when a large file is being written to the hard-drive and a user restarts the computer or otherwise disregards the warnings that are presented by the operating system.

One of the biggest issues related to software incompatibility is the developers' addition of newer software features designed to take advantage of ever-increasing processing power within new computers. Manufacturers are taking advantage of computer speed to showcase their products, but are not necessarily remembering the persons with the older computers. Software updates and improvements tax older computers beyond their capacities.

Precautions:

Obviously the severity of my issue with my computer would be nothing compared to the crash of a vital server running the business surveillance system. Given that we are literally being catapulted into an IP technology era, it is necessary to understand the differences from what we potentially have now and what we will have in the future. Understanding the technology that we will be forced to use will better help us prepare for contingencies on issues, such as the one I have experienced. So, what do you do if you have an IP system or you are planning to move into an IP camera system? What are the issues?

Computer Operating System(s)

The operating system is the core of the computer and is what software applications are written to run on top of. The operating system manages hardware peripherals and software and typically creates a "Graphical User Interface" (GUI), which allows us to do multiple things at once, such as word processing and surfing the Internet. As it relates to security, operating systems allow us to run the programs we use to manage security and cameras systems. However, not all operating systems are alike; they come in different flavors. Personally, I feel that Microsoft Windows is less reliable, less secure and generally a less ideal operating system that is plagued with issues such as the BSOD. In reality, Windows is a surprisingly fragile operating system, but most users don't realize this because they never work their way down into the inner workings of the system. Although Windows is the predominant operating system for security and surveillance systems, I predict that you will start to see manufacturers begin to write software for other operating systems, such as: