Big Interview – Edison Shen

March 8, 2022

Edison Shen, Director of Standards and Technology, Security Industry Association (SIA), who explores SIA’s session at Security Buyer Live

Your organisation is sending two speakers to the Security Buyer Live event, what can we expect from their session?

The Security Industry Association (SIA) appreciates the opportunity to present on the SIA Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP) standard to security users, developers and suppliers of Security Buyer Live.

Attendees of this session can expect to learn about how and why the OSDP standard was developed, the growth of two other SIA programs based on the OSDP standard, the benefits of OSDP features and a case study of implementing the protocol.

Your session will be a panel of two speakers on behalf of the Security Industry Association (SIA). What does each speaker bring to the panel?

Pete Jones and Sal D’Agostino have been active supporters for OSDP, and each brings a different perspective to the session.

Pete founded Third Millennium, an access control manufacturer, with a philosophy towards innovation and adoption of new technologies. He brings his insights on implementation of OSDP as a solution. He is vocal in his support of adopting OSDP over Wiegand and certified his readers through OSDP Verified, a comprehensive testing program that validates through third-party testing that a device conforms to the standard performance profiles.

Sal and his team at IDMachines have over a decade’s worth of technical experience on the OSDP protocol. Sal is an active member within the SIA OSDP Working Group and continues to support OSDP activities through providing his testing service as a third-party laboratory for OSDP Verified and offering training on expertise in deployment of OSDP through the SIA OSDP Boot Camp.

What is the OSDP standard?

OSDP is an industry standard for access control systems developed and published by the members of the OSDP Working Group, which consists of industry representatives, manufacturers, integrators and end users. It is a nonproprietary communication protocol for interfacing between a control panel and one or more peripheral device. This translates to the biggest value for end users, the ability for different manufacturer devices to all work harmoniously through OSDP.

Additionally, the International Electrotechnical Commission’s (IEC) Technical Committee (TC) 79 Alarm and electronic security systems published the OSDP standard in late 2020, paving the way for international adoption.

What is an industry standard and how are they developed?

Industry standards impact our everyday life from the clothes we wear to the food we eat and buildings we live in. They are documents which define a set of minimal accepted requirements developed voluntarily by the members of an industry to ensure the products, processes or personnel are safe, reliable and interoperable and perform as specified.

SIA is recognised as a Standards Developing Organisation (SDO) accredited by American National Standards Institute and advances guidelines and standards through an open, balanced and consensus-based approach to promote best practices within the industry. We bring together various stakeholders and facilitate an open dialogue to collect new proposals for entry into a technical document. Each proposal is carefully reviewed, deliberated upon, drafted and voted on by the committee for publication.

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