Access control + CCTV + VMS
the security operations triangle.

/ Engineering body

What this integration is and where it lives

Access control and CCTV are deployed together but they are only useful together when the VMS knows about the access events. The integration is event-driven: a card read on door 12 triggers a metadata tag on the VMS for the camera that covers door 12, with the timestamp and the cardholder ID. The operator searching for a specific badge can pull every camera frame where that badge was read, in seconds, without scrubbing footage manually. The implementation is a webhook, an RS-485 contact, or an integration via a third-party (typically Genetec, Honeywell, Bosch or Lenel). Each access controller publishes events; the VMS subscribes; the events become searchable tags in the recording. The seam is whether the access system and the VMS share a clock — clock drift of even 5 seconds makes the search useless, because the tag points at the wrong frame. Time synchronisation via NTP at the network layer, plus regular drift verification, is what makes the integration actually deliver on its premise.