Imagine, for a minute, the security needs of top-tier defense industry players—say, Stark Industries. You may already know that Stark Industries (“Stark”) is a fictional multinational industrial company appearing in Marvel Comics.
We’ll use Stark in this piece as a representative use case, in relating the needs of such organizations with a number of improvements we’ve made to AEOS behind the scenes. Please play along…
So, Stark specializes in weapons technology, robotics, and satellites. And they’ve already experienced numerous existential threats: external ones, including governmental or industrial espionage and physical attacks by rivals in the technology sector. But they’ve also been prone to insider threats, such as rogue C-suite members making under-the-table deals with terror organizations.
Sound dramatic? Perhaps. But it’s not unheard of in real life.
Keeping up with increasing demand
The situation on the ground is that many of our customers (maybe you?)—not only top-tier defense contracting companies—are finding themselves confronted with unprecedented physical security and cybersecurity requirements.
Though security requirements are more complex and demands on any system more intense, customers still expect a smooth, uncomplicated user experience and a stable system. Simply put, they don’t want their visitors or their employees to have to think about access control.
With an eye towards addressing today’s challenges (even for companies like Stark Industries) requiring both high security and flexibility, we’ve implemented some improvements to AEOS “under the hood.”
AEOS improvements behind the scenes
The changes we’ve made are designed to keep AEOS performing well in an increasingly challenging security environment. Here are some of the most important ones:
Beating morning rush hours
We’ve implemented an optimized handling of modifications carried out by the AEOS users. With this change, we created “lanes” for modifications. These lanes can be assigned to dedicated AEOS users. Particularly in systems where many AEOS are entering modifications into the system simultaneously, this optimization will lead to a big leap in performance.
And when receptionists are dealing with morning rush hour, badge modifications will get to the controllers much faster. Because not all superheroes wear capes!
Reduce database calls with a factor 50
We’ve also implemented a function for batching of events for the durable event handler. By sending over events in batches, rather than per event, the number of database calls at peak times can be reduced from 7,000 to a mere 140 per minute.
Distribute modifications instantaneously
In situations wherein multiple AEOS users simultaneously manage the system, occasionally, different template modifications are entered at the same time. This leads to queuing of the template modifications, which can result in a certain change only getting to a controller after several minutes. Especially when changing security authorizations, it’s imperative that these changes are distributed as soon as possible. Consequently, we’ve altered the method of handling these changes so that there no longer is a queue. This ensures that each template modification performed by an AEOS user gets to the controller almost instantaneously.
Moving at the speed of opportunity
Global instability, interconnected supply chains, and reliance on critical infrastructure result in a situation wherein a single breach—physical, or digital—can have far-reaching consequences.
While we remain wary of new threats, we also relish these challenges as opportunities—because they push us and AEOS forward, and our customers benefit from the improvements.
Ultimately, this era of complexity gives us the chance to level up our game, offering all of our customers transformative services and solutions.
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And if you’ve got questions about any of the improvements we shared above, then don’t be shy. Click the button below and send your questions in!
