SGS Acquisition of Phoenix Data Security Completed
New Alarm Service Monitors Central Stations

June 1, 2007–Irvine, CA

The Milwaukee, WI headquarters and Network Operations Center (NOC) of Phoenix Data Security have been successfully integrated into Secure Global Solutions. Phoenix president Bill Brousseau has joined SGS management as vice president, network operations. The Milwaukee operation will continue to invent monitoring tools and will begin to apply this expertise to the alarm industry.

Phoenix is a pioneer in “continuous data collection and monitoring” for the computer industry. The backStage™ Manager, a linux based server product, empowers companies to monitor all critical equipment and operating functions. Unlike competitors who limit functionality to firewall and intrusion detection services, Phoenix founder Bill Brousseau realized there were many parts of every business computer network no one watched. When a server or a web site failed, the business suffered even more than from a breach of security. The result was the birth of a new service – continuous data collection and monitoring.

Bill and his team have created hardware and written hundreds of software utilities called “plug-ins” to monitor everything you can imagine. Temperature too high in the computer room? Email service stopped? Blood bank processing equipment failing? Bank web sites not working? A test is written and a “plug-in” is created to continually check each of these functions. As Bill says “if you can define it, we can create a test to validate the function.”

Critical to successful monitoring is response. Through the Milwaukee NOC, CISSP professionals monitor security and hundreds of additional points that have been identified as “critical failure junctures.” The NOC knows acceptable parameters for every point monitored and can review up to a year of historical information collected on every device. Trends can be identified and failures can be avoided altogether. Should there be uncertainty; the NOC contacts the right people to help you get quick resolution.

SGS’ Hank Goldberg is looking at all the functions needing monitoring in the alarm business as a very interesting opportunity – providing monitoring to the industry that monitors. Is this like selling fish to fishermen? Not really, the scope of services provided in modern central stations is complex and the hardware is diverse. You cannot expect the operating staff to understand the underlying technology and the performance features. When you get backStage™ Manager a team of experts helps you optimize the performance of the station’s equipment.

This technology ensures the availability of critical systems within the network. This is vital to life safety operations such as Alarm Central Stations. SGS is excited about introducing the Phoenix products to the alarm industry.