ONVIF has always been a member driven organization, with myriad committees and working groups open to member participation, all working toward the common goal of delivering interoperability standards. Each committee serves a different role, ranging from setting the organization’s strategic direction, updating the core specification and developing new profiles and ultimately communicating ONVIF’s mission and activities to the industry at large.
One such group within the ONVIF organization is the Use Case Working Group, formed to develop real-world use cases that address current market demands in areas that are not specifically addressed by ONVIF specifications or profiles. The use cases being developed are used as input for future ONVIF specifications, and are then provided to the technical committee to contribute to the development of future profiles, as well as to maintain the ONVIF technical roadmap. With a robust industry full of innovative technologies, a use case can be developed around an application that may fall under the ONVIF scope in a general sense, but that can be technically expanded on to provide new solutions.
An example of this would be traffic management, an area where ONVIF does not specifically address today, but one in which ONVIF specifications could be beneficial. By creating a profile that allows for different video systems to integrate together, disparate systems are able to communicate in a direct and more efficient way. Creating open protocols that allow for communication between multiple surveillance systems can create a system that harnesses the information gathered from systems that monitor safety conditions on highways with another capturing city traffic congestion, and share it all with local public safety and news outlets – all without excessive software integration work or system replacement. This is one way that the use case working group tries to find areas that could benefit from ONVIF, but have not yet been formally addressed by the organization.
The mission of the Use Case Working Group is to seek out areas in the industry that could benefit from ONVIF specifications, expand on the technical need for ONVIF and hand to the ONVIF Technical Committee for consideration and further potential development. Unlike other ONVIF committees where participation is limited to ONVIF members, various industry stakeholders, such as end users, consultants, system integrators and others are eligible to participate by invitation. With the ability to seek inspiration from all corners of the market, the scope is broad and the possibilities endless.
Such input is vital to ensuring that ONVIF remains relevant and adjusts to the ever changing dynamics of the security industry and beyond. As the applicability of ONVIF grows into other markets, such as the Internet of Things, video content analysis and intelligent building management, this feedback will become essential as our interdependence on interoperability between systems and industries continues to grow.
Did you know that there are 10 different ONVIF working groups that all carry out a specific mission? To find out more visit www.onvif.org/about/organization/
