Your I.T. Department and Sonitrol Pacific Intrusion Detection Systems

Most business I.T. managers guard their networks fiercely and are hesitant to allow any outside modifications or additions. When it comes to installing Sonitrol Pacific intrusion detection systems and linking them to the business’ server room, I.T. managers want to make sure they know exactly what they’re getting into. Below are some of the most common questions we hear from I.T. managers and our answers to them.

(A word of caution to the non-techies out there: don’t get frustrated if you don’t really understand the answers below. We have plenty of technical experts on our team to help walk you through it!)

Question: How does the Sonitrol product affect my network?

Answer: It requires one static address on the public internet, which is to be NAT’d to a static address on the private network it will be connected to. As long as you don’t block outbound traffic, only two UDP ports need to be opened up. Alternately, you may connect it outside or in front of the firewall.

Question: How does the Sonitrol system affect my network procedures?

Answer: Once the set up is done your only interaction will be if you change any part of the network settings our panel relies upon.

Question: Why do I need to open my firewall for you?

Answer: Our panel relies on unsolicited, two-way communication. This way the monitoring center has the ability to connect to the panel to make options changes and gain status information at any time.

Question: How secure is this hardware?

Answer: There is no operation system on board. It is a processor that listens on one port for one packet format. The protocol is proprietary to Sonitrol and relies on a hashing algorithm that only the panel and receiver are aware of, so there are no unnecessary services running. The Ethernet stack will respond to a ping, but you can filter those messages after set up is complete.

Question: How much bandwidth does this hardware use?

Very little. Alarm messages = 11 bytes, audio is streamed @ 19.2 Kbps, and options downloads transfer packets of 512KB.