Genetec has announced the release of the newest version of its unified security platform, Security Center 5.1. New features supported include a pioneering health monitoring engine, directory high availability, support of multiple Active Directory (AD) servers for both users and cardholders, an industry-leading dynamic map editor and viewer called Plan Manager, an auxiliary archiver feature, global cardholder management, and other functionalities destined to improve upgrades and maintenance. This release of Security Center also brings Genetec’s task-based approach to the configuration client application.

Genetec believes that long-term system care and maintenance is crucial to any security system. The Security Center’s new health monitoring feature manages and monitors the health of the security platform, from servers and client applications to edge devices and more. Through real-time health monitoring, security and IT departments can increasingly take proactive and preventative action. New tasks, such as health history and health statistics reports, provide valuable information about past and current performance of the unified security platform.

Another key addition to the Security Center is its forward and backward compatibility. Customers are now able to upgrade their main server, while leaving their client applications and other server applications at a previous version. This powerful feature facilitates system upgrades, giving Genetec’s customers the freedom and flexibility to upgrade at their own pace and with limited impact on current operations. The Security Center also supports forward compatibility of its Federation feature. The central monitoring server of a large virtual system can remain at its current version, while remote independent systems can be upgraded to the most current version of Security Center with no impact on central monitoring and reporting.

Security Center 5.1 also sports a new global cardholder management feature which presents end users with the infrastructure for synchronizing cardholders, credentials and other data between remote independent sites with a central location. Organizations can use this feature to administer their cardholder population centrally and improve efficiency. Likewise, this enterprise-class feature empowers organizations to equip cardholders with a single card for all their facilities; assigning multiple credentials per cardholder is now a thing of the past. The Security Center’s Active Directory (AD) integration can now handle connections to multiple AD servers, ideal for large-scale implementations of AD or multi-tenant applications. Finally, AD integration now supports the synchronization of AD attributes to cardholder custom fields. [www.genetec.com]