Access Control and Integrated Security

C-Cure 800 v10 ODBC driver change

2009-09-28T16:00:00.003-05:00

The next major release of the C-Cure 800/8000 is schedule to come out withing the next month or two. With it comes a new version of the Progress database. The Merant Progress ODBC driver will no longer be distributed. A new Progress driver is included.

Any applications which access C-Cure through ODBC will need to use the new driver. For programs accessing data through a DSN, you will need to create a new DSN. Software using DSN-less connections will need to be modified as well.

As with any software change, there will probably be subtle differences in operation, and testing prior to cutover is advised for any mission-critical software. If you use any FIS-supplied applications, please contact us prior to doing the C-Cure upgrade.

New C-Cure tools/features

2008-05-14T08:13:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the blog drought. We've been busy doing development. Here's some of the stuff we've been working on.

1. 800 Explorer - this tool simplifies apC to iSTAR migration on the C-Cure 800. Without this tool, you need to manually reprogram C-Cure when you move readers, inputs, and outputs. With the tool, the old and new hardware appears in a tree. You select what to move and where to move it to, and with a few click, it is there.

2. Facility Analytics reporting - advanced reporting features, flexible delivery options. Features include statical reports (counting), audit reports, browser delivery, multi-site reporting, and more.

3. Enhanced Auditing (in development) - where C-Cure and Facility Analytics report on changes to the C-Cure database, enhanced auditing takes this to the next level - who viewed data, even if no changes were made. This can be important in meeting HIPAA and regulatory requirements where data privacy is important.

4. Human Resource integration, Time and Attendance reporting - SQL Express is not supported, removing the expense of using full SQL Server. Personnel synchronization performance between C-Cure and SQL Server has be improved dramatically.

Watch out when you delete Persons

2007-10-31T15:13:00.000-05:00

Prior to version 9.0 of C-Cure, you could view and export pretty much all of the person/card data for deleted persons. With the database changes made in 9.0 (person and card data split to support multiple cards per person), fields associated with the card can no longer be viewed. This includes:

Activation
Expiration
Badge layout and print date
Lost and stolen flags

If ever will need to retrieve these fields for departed persons, disable the records, but do not delete. This is true even if you do not enable the multiple card/person feature.

Note: the data remains in the card record in the C-Cure database, but seems to be ignored when C-Cure displays person data. In a pinch, it can be accessed using ODBC.

Your input regarding C-Cure reports is requested

2007-04-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

I am considering writing a report package for the C-Cure 800 and looking for feedback. The goal is to provide reports that are either not available, too slow, or lack needed content. Some examples:

Inactivity - show person who haven't used their card (too slow on 800)
Statistical - reports counts of various things like accesses, alarms, etc.
Personnel - clearance audits, filtering by date range, etc
Audit Trail - filter and format in ways not supported in 800
Journal - provide added filtering and formatting. Example - report activity during weekdays last week between the hours of 9:00 and 17:00

Other suggestions?

For delivery, we have used Microsoft Access and Excel most frequently. Crystal Reports offers nice formating, but tends to be more cumbersome for complex reports involving multiple tables and databases. For large, complicated reports and data processing, Microsoft SQL Server is very powerful.

You can comment by posting to this blog, or via e-mail.

More on Virtual Machines

2007-03-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

An interesting article in the March 6, 2007 Wall Street Journal titled " 'Virtualization' is Pumping up Servers" states that virtualization is largely to blame for the worst slowdown in x86 server sales since the dot com bust. In one example, a user went from requiring 300 servers across 45 departments to just 35 physical servers. The electricity savings alone are $30-$40K per year.

One user is quotes as saying that over the next decade "Anything that can be in a virtual machine will be. If any large organization is not looking at this, they are really missing the boat."

Though you wouldn't install C-Cure on a multi-user server because of security and reliability concerns, installing it on a virtual machine residing on a server hosting several VMs makes a lot of sense. You save on hardware, setup, IT management, electricity, make fail-over easier, etc.

Security systems are usually a few years behind the technology curve (think magstripe). Virtualization is mature technology. It's virtually a no-brainer.

Change to daylight saving time

2007-02-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed in August 2005 and changes the daylight saving time dates effective March 2007. Under the new law, clocks will be moved forward one hour on the second Sunday of March instead of the current first Sunday of April. Clocks will be set back an hour the first Sunday of November rather than the last Sunday of October. In North America, the changes apply to the US and Canada, but not Mexico.

Many computers and devices that have programming to adjust their internal time will require attention. Patches are available for recent Microsoft operating systems. See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx for documentation and patch download.

Access control and alarm panels often synchronize their time with a host computer. Since automatic unlocks, arm/disarm, and access decisions are generally based on the panel time, you should verify that your host is patched or manually set to the correct time on the change dates. Also, beware of the old change dates since some systems might erroneously change their clock on that date.

Panel Comm errors -> C-Cure crash

2007-02-02T13:55:00.000-05:00

One goal for this blog is to help people learn from the experience of others. This tip is based on a recent painful incident at a high profile. The site was down for several hours event thought they have redundant servers that are functioning properly.

When C-Cure person records are edited, imported, or purged, the changes are downloaded to online panels. If a panel is online, but not communicating due to a hardware or line failure, C-Cure stores the changes for that panel in a download table so they can be sent when comm is restored.

Over time, these records can take up a lot of space in the database, and ultimately kill the driver. If you have a redundant system, the same database will exist on the backup system, so the failure will occur there as well. As far as I know, there is no clear indication of why the system won't work, and to recover, you need restore a backup of a good database or have SH TSG do some database magic.

Moral of story - communication failures should be dealt with immediately, and panels (or comm ports) should be set offline if the fault cannot be repaired promptly.

Problems with Copy/Paste from Excel into C-Cure

2007-01-31T17:43:00.000-05:00

When you copy a cell in Excel, end of line characters (CRLF) are included at the end of the data. Beware if you paste into C-Cure or other applications.

A customer had about 100 entries to add to an enumerated list. The entries were in a spreadsheet so he did a copy from Excel and paste into the Personnel\Configuration screen for the enumerated field. Then he created a template and attempted to import data into the field.

All records were rejected saying the enumerated values were unknown. When we manually selected a value from the pull-down, then exported the records, we say a line break. Unfortunately, it took a few hours of investigation before this was tried.

By editing the value on the configuration screen, we saw that you could hit delete then re-add the last character and the invisible characters at the end were removed and the import worked.

I have seem similar things happen when copying and pasting in Sql Server grids. Beware.

Virtual Machines

2007-01-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

A Virtual Machine (VM) is an emulated computer, running on a physical machine. You take a few gigabytes of disk space, several hundred megabytes of memory, and install the operating system. Since the VM consists of several large files, it is easy to backup, restore, and copy.

Microsoft and EMC are leading providers of commercial software in this area (other non-commercial software is also available. Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 is free, and is allows you to create a VM on your computer onto which you can install a copy of the C-Cure 800 server for development and testing. EMC offers a free VMware Player which can run a VM created by the commercial VMware product or Microsoft Virtual PC.

Both vendors have higher-end offerings that allow the VM to be run in a production environment, and provide management and control tools. EMC is the industry leader with an extensive VMware Server product line. By running your security system on a VM, you can use server hardware more efficiently, and gain reliability and flexibility. Many companies have already moved to a VM environment for their database and webserver.

Hints/suggestions

To get started, download Virtual PC 2004 from the above link. A PC with a P4 processor, 10GB free disk space, and 1GB of should be sufficient to load a VM.
When you create the VM, you need to size the disk and memory. I usually assign 3-5 GB of space and 256B of memory. Adjust this depending on what will be loaded on the VM.
After creating the VM, you must load an operating system. For Windows, an old copy of Windows 2000 is good because it does not require activation. For XP, you will need to activate you copy after the trial period. Linux and other OS's are also supported.
C-Cure uses a USB dongle for licensing. Software House can provide a temporary "zero sentinel" license to Integrators that does not require the dongle.
Digi offers products which allow a USB device to be connected to a hub on network (you need to verify compatibility).

Welcome

2007-01-23T20:08:00.000-05:00

I have created this blog as a communications forum within the physical security community. While I am most familiar with Software House C-Cure and S2 NetBox products, I encourage users and integrators of other products to join us.

-Jeff Bennett