Many people would have heard the term IP this and IP that such as Voice over IP and IP Video Surveillance.  What does IP mean?  Is it just another buzz word in fashion?  How does IP affect us running a business?

IP stands for Internet Protocol although it also stands for intellectual property.  Interestingly, the Internet Protocol is an intellectual property but one of the very few with its content fully publicized and free for anyone to use.  Vinton Cerf, a living top world class scientist, designed IP in the mid seventies and IP has since become the standard for Internet addressing.  Imagine an hour glass with sands flowing in one direction.  The sands are the content to be sent through the Internet.  The top side is the application or the software of people.  The bottom of the hour glass is the physical media or the hardware of the Internet.  IP is the bottleneck of the hour glass linking the two sides.  No matter what software or hardware is involved, we always use IP as the addressing standard. 

What did we have prior to IP?  We had analogue and later on digital. Digital simply refers to a scheme using 0 and 1 to represent everything like how a computer works.  IP came along and prescribes how to format data into packets for sending over the Internet, local area networks and wide area networks alike.

It becomes obvious that IP would give businesses higher productivity or competitive edges if properly deployed.  One major advantage is that companies can include more functions such as Video Surveillance into the information system.  Another advantage is that whatever advances are made to IP, the advances can be applied to applications such as Video Surveillance with minimal cost.  As such, all technology and application developments are turning from analogue or digital to IP and this situation will render analogue or non-IP products obsolete in the very near future.

CNZ has been providing IT service and support to Compucon customers for years. Now CNZ has added IP Video Surveillance as a new service.  Using the hour glass analogy, Video Surveillance is just an application and the rest of the hour glass is the existing technology infrastructure.  CNZ has researched Video Surveillance technology for about a year for mastery and now declares to add IPVS as a new customer offering.  IPVS has already obtained the endorsement of early adopters and it is ready for businesses to capitalize the advantages.  Please consider IP if plan to install a surveillance system.  See www.cnz.co.nz and feel free to seek further information from the writer as desired.