Today, an intrusion detection system that is not accompanied by images gives us the feeling that it is not complete: we will be able to detect the intrusion, but not obtain information from it. Something similar happens if we try to base the protection of an installation simply on the installation of a CCTV system supervised by guards, without an intrusion system: we will have information about the intrusion, but too late, afterwards, when the intrusion has already ended.
Therefore, they are two technologies that are destined to work continuously, forming a single protection system.
SGSE continues to take steps to achieve the goal of CCTV and intrusion as one, thanks to Milestone and its integration options.
In this case, it is the intrusion panels of the Galaxy® Flex family that are added to the list of panels integrated in Milestone by SGSE through plugins. Therefore, as with the rest of the integrated panels, it is now possible to receive alarms and other events from the Honeywell Galaxy Flex panels. In this way, we will be able to monitor and control our intrusion installation together with the CCTV from the Milestone XProtect SmartClient interface.
The panels of the Flex family allow to establish a bidirectional communication through the IP network and simultaneously with both Milestone and with the alarm receiving center to build mixed management architectures.
The procedure for using the plugin to integrate a Galaxy Flex panel is the same as that already used to integrate a Galaxy Dimension panel: it will be necessary to configure the Galaxy control panel, indicating the model of the control panel to be integrated, as well as the addressing data. network. Depending on the selected model, lists will be loaded with the possible groups, zones and outputs that the control panel can manage. We will have to select those elements that our panel actually contains and that we want to incorporate into Milestone.
After completing the configuration, the elements associated with the panel itself and the selected groups, zones and outputs will be created in Milestone. This process can take a while, depending on the number of items. At the end, it will show us a message indicating that the process has finished.
By having these elements, we can drag them onto a map in the SmartClient, and in this way visualize at the moment if an alarm associated with any of them has been received, by means of the red flashing circle typical of Milestone, in addition to seeing the alarm in the list of alarms.
Alarms in Milestone
The installation of the plugin incorporates a new group of events in Milestone, which contains the events that can reach us from the Galaxy control panel through its communication protocol. For each of these events, we can select if we want it to be considered as an alarm, thus obtaining alarms only on the events that we consider necessary. In this way, the level of customization of the solution and alarm monitoring is maximum.
For example, we could define that the burglary alarm events (Burglary Alarm) are considered in Milestone as alarms, regardless of the area in which the detection was made. However, we could also define that the zone tamper event, or the power failure event, is considered an alarm for a series of zones, which could be more critical, but not for the rest of the zones.
Rules in Milestone
In addition, for each of these events, we can configure Milestone rules that are triggered automatically when receiving an event of this type from a certain source, causing the actions configured in the rule itself to be executed without the need for the intervention of no operator.
In this way, we could program rules to, for example, receive notifications by email when a certain group is disarmed, or start recordings of a group of cameras when we receive the notification that a group has been armed, when the feeding a zone, etc.
Commands
Along with the alarm reception functionality, the plugin adds the possibility of interacting with the control panel through specific commands for each type of element.
From the plane where we have displayed the icons, we can launch the commands using the contextual menu of each icon. Depending on the type of element on which we right click, the corresponding options are displayed:
Central intrusion:
– Arming
– Disarm
– Partial arming
– Abort arming
– Forced arming
Group:
– Arming
– Disarm
– Partial arming
– Abort arming
– Forced arming
Zone:
– Skip
– Restore
Outputs:
– Activate
– Desactivate
In this way we will be able, from the plane displayed in the SmartClient, to arm and disarm the entire control panel, a group, carry out a partial arm, omit zones, restore them, activate outputs, etc.
In addition to the flashing red circle that will appear around the elements that have an active alarm, the different icons will be updated to indicate the status of the element, and in this way we can quickly see if the groups are armed, disarmed, or partially armed, and if the zones have been omitted or not.
Requirements
The currently integrated control panels are the Galaxy Flex V3 in its different versions:
- FX020
- FX050
- FX100
In order to use the plug-in, since the communication established between it and the panel is an IP communication, it is necessary that the control panel has the Ethernet module (A083).
Due to the characteristics of the plugin, it is necessary to work on the Plus versions of XProtect with an alarm management module, that is:
- XProtect Express+
- XProtect Professional+
- XProtect Expert
- XProtect Corporate
Demo of Galaxy Flex intrusion panel integration in Milestone
In the video below you can see the demonstration of the SGSE integration of the Galaxy Flexen Milestone intrusion panel through the following link:
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