N3N "Truly Open Visualization Platform For Physical Security" Profile

By: Sean Patton, Published on May 09, 2018

A Cisco-backed startup, N3N, claims to deliver "the world’s first and only truly open visualization platform for physical security." The company goes further in declaring that you can now "unite all of your physical security platforms and applications" and that they "eliminate dependencies on APIs or SDKs"

How can they do that? What are the tradeoffs and how does this work?

In this note, based on feedback from N3N, we examine their platform and answer these questions.

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Comments (11)

Avatar

Michael Gonzalez

Integrated Security Technologies, Inc.
05/16/18 04:37am

Interesting. Looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

Simao Fernandes

01/22/19 08:21pm

Sounds great!!

Undisclosed Integrator #1

01/22/19 09:37pm

This is an interesting solution and one that I missed looking at back when the report first came out.  I went to their website today, and they've embedded a link to IPVM on their website's home page. Is this normally done?

 

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 01/22/19 11:33pm

Since they just say the report exists ("read the recent report profiling") and don't make any claims or insinuations that we endorsed them or recommend them, it's ok.

We don't allow companies to make any statements that are promotional but it's ok for any company to state the fact that we did cover them. Related, our terms on non-promotion.

Undisclosed #2

In reply to John Honovich | 01/23/19 02:54am

"Since they just say the report exists ("read the recent report profiling") and don't make any claims or insinuations that we endorsed them or recommend them, it's ok."

that is interesting - and I am not saying your position should be any different than it is.

but...

would any company post a link to an IPVM report on their product(s) that contained any pointed examples of weaknesses in same?

if you accept that proffer, then it follows that only those with product reviews that 'aren't negative' (meaning no glaring holes have been exposed in the IPVM product review) would ever post links to the IPVM review of their product(s).

serious question:

How is a post like this one - referencing an IPVM report on their product(s) - not a de facto IPVM product endorsement?

 

Undisclosed #3

IPVMU Certified | In reply to Undisclosed #2 | 01/23/19 04:59am

would any company post a link to an IPVM report on their product(s) that contained any pointed examples of weaknesses in same?

its an interesting hypothetical discussion, but first you would have to find that rare IPVM review that didn’t have “any pointed examples of weakness in same”.

For instance, this one contains a couple of statements that might make you doubt the whole product:

However, our experience with integrations is that it is not feasible to regularly execute such integrations in such short time frames, regardless of the skill of an individual company, given the constraints involved in integrating into such systems.

We are not sure if they are even a PSIM or a solution, given the use of virtual desktop, at least to start to, which is not true system integration at all.

Now perhaps they are banking on the fact that not everyone has a sub to IPVM and therefore can’t see the actual review.  If such a reader then applies your logic in reverse, “they posted a link, therefore it must be a good review”, then it would work as a defacto endorsement of sorts.

However, regardless of IPVM’s promotional policy, it is unlikely that any DCMA takedown would ultimately prevail on a neutrally worded link, after all there is some protection afforded by the 1st amendment.

Even Consumer Reports, the standard bearer of independent reviews, allows neutrally worded links from websites and social media posts:

We encourage linking through websites orsocial media to any of our free, current (within last three years) content using neutral language.

Here are two examples:

"See what Consumer Reports says about ______.”

“The ___ was recently featured in Consumer Reports.”

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed #3 | 01/23/19 05:14am

Yes, what #3 said!

I am actually bit surprised they linked to this because our outlook for this product is mixed, at best, and skeptical, at worst.

But, as with Consumer Reports, I don't think we can or should ban any reference, given freedom of speech. Things may be different in the future hypothetical ChIPVM.....

Undisclosed #2

In reply to John Honovich | 01/23/19 06:08am

"But, as with Consumer Reports, I don't think we can or should ban any reference, given freedom of speech."

there is no need to defend your established practice when a comment broaching the subject starts with:

"that is interesting - and I am not saying your position should be any different than it is"

Further, UD3s comments regarding the OP position below do not qualify as 'negative', imo - but instead are simple qualifiers based on comparisons to known, existing PSIM solutions.

However, our experience with integrations is that it is not feasible to regularly execute such integrations in such short time frames, regardless of the skill of an individual company, given the constraints involved in integrating into such systems.

We are not sure if they are even a PSIM or a solution, given the use of virtual desktop, at least to start to, which is not true system integration at all.

This statement is better classified as ambivalent - vs UD3s position that it is negative.

Undisclosed #3

IPVMU Certified | In reply to Undisclosed #2 | 01/23/19 03:13pm

there is no need to defend your position when a comment contains:

...it would work as a defacto endorsement of sorts.

As pertains to:

This statement is better classified as ambivalent - vs UD3s position that it is negative.

imho, they’re as negative as any of the positives in the article, leading to overall ambivalence.

At least compared to SSI:

Undisclosed #3

IPVMU Certified | 01/23/19 04:40am

During the first phase of deployment, they create a virtual desktop running a native software client from the systems being integrated (VMS, Access Control, Fire/Intrusion, etc). The virtual desktop client provides mouse click control over the software client within a tile of the N3N client.

this may be the most Mickey Mouse approach to enterprise software that I’ve ever heard of!  Basically use AutoHotKey to string your VMS, AC and other systems together, and call it a PSIM?

Anybody who has done things like this know all too well it’s limitations, IMHO the big two are:

1) Software upgrades / hot fixes can break the whole interface just by changing the label on a button from “Accept” to “OK”

2) Unexpected error messages or behavior that was not seen during testing cause unpredictable actions.

Moreover, although responsible software companies will document changes in the release notes, expecting them to tell you about every pixel that might change is not going to happen.

The more you iron out the bugs, the more you dread the next release.  Not a good position to be in for any system, let alone a critical one.

 

Undisclosed #4

01/23/19 05:17pm

The GUI, I do not 100% like it. I think it is time to hire video game designers to build a functional UI. Ugh, just my first gut feeling on this one.

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