By Dave Tyson (dave.tyson@vancouver.ca)

Now that convergence has stepped from the shadows of obscurity and begun its growth into a legitimate topic of study, it may be time to start looking at the fine edge of the wedge to see what we really mean by it.

People discuss at every major security conference in North America these days “Security Convergence”, what it means and its value or applicability. I think it bears defining further what we mean by Convergence versus some other phases like Holistic Security and Enterprise Risk Management.

Let’s face it, convergence happened! It happened under the covers while no-one was looking. Physical security systems moved from standalone systems to converted IP systems and finally to IP enabled network systems. This conversion has happened basically over the past 7-8 years and effectively it happened quite quietly.

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