Network Security – Protect Your AV/UC Blind Spots
Device manufacturers don’t always include robust enterprise-grade security protocols in their cloud or device APIs. Since there’s no mandate or industry standard for all manufacturers to follow, every device API is different. This is the bane of Enterprise Security– the AV industry does not provide a comprehensive or consistent security posture, yet the AV gear is expected to go on the managed network.
Cloud-based communication and integration offer clear advantages and have become the go-to choice for many IT professionals. Services like CRM, ITSM, helpdesk, email, calendars, room booking, video conferencing, and marketing automation often rely on the Cloud because no additional on-premises hardware is required. Following this trend, many AV management platforms have moved to Cloud-only solutions. And while Cloud APIs can be powerful and highly effective in many applications, there are still countless environments where device-level APIs are the better choice. After all, integrating software platforms is fundamentally different from communicating with hardware devices. Primarily for security reasons, financial institutions, government agencies, and quasi-government organizations often prohibit Cloud access to their network devices. For several reasons, InfoSec does not want to provide direct access between their network devices and the public internet. First, as mentioned earlier, not all AV devices are hardened and secure. Second, the AV system is usually segmented or on a VLAN (or multiple VLANs)- typically ideal for an AV network – which needs a dedicated hardware/firewall to provide that extra layer of protection. Third, Tech Ops and InfoSec want to manage both inbound and outbound network traffic for maximum security and system performance.
Many AV vendors promote the fact that their cloud-based products require no additional hardware. But enterprise organizations often want that extra layer of protection and flexibility. That’s why it’s important to look for platforms that support both Cloud-based and device-level APIs, while still giving customers the option to add secure, on-network components when needed.
With Utelogy, this flexibility comes through our gateway server—sometimes referred to as a “collector”—that sits on-network or on-premises to manage communication between devices, the Cloud, and the outside internet. While in theory it’s an option to only connect to Cloud services and Cloud APIs, for most enterprise customers an essential part of ensuring comprehensive and consistent security is to connect directly to the device APIs themselves. Importantly, Utelogy is not a piece of hardware, it’s a software-defined platform that leverages industry-standard services to deliver enterprise-grade security, resiliency, and compliance.
We’re committed to protecting customer data, ensuring secure access, and maintaining high availability across all systems. That’s also why we encourage manufacturers to design truly “utelligent” devices, hardware built with secure connectivity in mind.
Examples of what this looks like include:
- Multi-Socket Connectivity – Devices should support multiple concurrent socket connections to the same port, enabling scenarios where multiple platforms can communicate simultaneously. For instance, Utelogy could provide monitoring and management while an existing control platform continues handling in-room functions.
- Secure Protocols and Encryptions – Encrypted communication by default (TLS/SSL) to protect sensitive data in transit and utilizes secure protocols such as SSH, HTTPS, WSS
- Authentication – so only authorized systems and users can interact with the device.
- Intelligent Responses – For example, when the device is queried, the response delivered is “Temperature=22,” rather than simply replying back “22”
- Robust API that offers subscription or WSS for unsolicited status updates
By combining Cloud-based APIs, device-level APIs, and secure device design, enterprises gain the best of all worlds: agility, control, and confidence in their AV infrastructure.
Our cloud SaaS platform is hosted on Microsoft Azure, which maintains multiple global data centers with built-in redundancy and backup protocols. Our databases are set up across multiple regions to minimize single points of failure, support rapid disaster recovery and comply with data security requirements such as GDPR.