TrueSystems deployed a unified security system for the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).  It integrated 8000 alarms systems at the United States Postal Service with computer aided dispatch of USPIS law enforcement personnel.

Problem: The USPIS had disperate legacy alarm systems, security databases, and dispatch systems that did not talk to each other.  The problem was exacerbated because of the 8000 different alarm systems all across North America.  As one of the largest federal agencies, they needed a way to simplify work flows, reduce costs, and ensure that important alarms get the attention of US Postal Inspectors. The system had to be fully redundant with no single point of failure and work in a 24x7 mission critical security setting with 99.999% up-time.

Solution: USPIS came to TrueSystems to design a unified security system to meet their unique needs, and scale up to 8000 alarm systems across the USA.  They deployed a set of redundant TrueSentry C3 servers in separate command centers to identify alarms in real-time and automatically generate computer aided dispatch (CAD) incidents.  A new work-flow was implemented to reduce manual processes, and give dispatchers detailed information from different databases so that postal inspectors can rapidly address alarms. Alarm filtering rules were implemented to filter out false alarms.

The TrueSentry message bus queues up alarms and incidents to ensure guaranteed delivery of messages in geographically disperse systems.  It employs automatic, real-time fail-over to secondary systems, and guarantees only one incident is created for an alarm, even during a fail-over from primary to secondary alarm system.

Results: The unified security system and TrueSentry C3 Server has been operational with no downtime.  The rules engine has reduced false alarms.  The improved work flow led to substantial cost savings.  The integrated dispatch led to improved response times.