Sigur has celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the company in 2021. This is not only a reason for receiving congratulations fr om thousands of partners and clients, summing up the results, but also time for defining new goals and building plans. Sigur has always developed according to its main principles - to be efficient, dynamic and flexible. The same values will be the basis for the company in the future.
New equipment’s lines
2021 was a year of noticeable changes in the company, including its product portfolio. Thus, new lines of equipment presented at the international exhibition Securika Moscow in April 2021 have completely replaced the previous models of Sigur controllers and readers.
Despite the difficulties on the microelectronics market, the company managed to organize mass production of products successfully and to launch public sales of new equipment in June.
The market responded well to our new products - we felt an increased demand for new models of readers and controllers. Customers appreciated especially the possibilities of united use of new readers and the Sigur E2 / E4 controllers: increasing the usability, optimizing the cost of implementation and administration.
Sigur E2 and E4 controllers are strict adherence to IT standards, ready-made tools for cooperation with business’s infrastructure and due to the security loops the ability to connect various sensors in order to organize a full-fledged security system based on one device.
The new E510 controller is an improved continuation of the current Sigur line. Along with the already usual functions, such as the ability to monitor any access control equipment, autonomous processing of all passage logics and many others, it has acquired network capabilities - support of protocols DHCP, SNMP and traffic encryption according to SSL / TLS.
The MR100 reader is an updated version of the Sigur MR1 reader, which has received not only the recognition of the professional community, but also won the international Red Dot Design Award 2020 for product design. The most important functional changes in the readers are support of additional types of identifiers and the new OSDP communication interface. Now, in addition to work with Mifare cards and smartphones, the reader also supports reading EM Marine identifiers and bank cards using EMV technology, including those added to Apple Wallet or Google Pay. In addition to the native capabilities of OSDP, its extended support allows to update the settings of readers’ indication, security keys, and to monitor the work of devices centrally.
New software functions
We continued to develop products in different directions, based on our own vision and using the feedback from our customers. Sigur specialists provided full support for new lines of equipment:
- OSDP (Open Supervised Device Protocol) interface support on the side of controllers and readers;
- development of SSDP (Sigur Supervised Device Protocol) functionality based on OSDP for more convenient updating of indication settings for MR100 readers, device firmware, updating security keys and other functions;
- support for encryption of transmitted information at all stages - from readers to controllers, from controllers to the system's server;
- implementation of security functions on the Sigur E2 and E4 controllers.
In addition to supporting new lines of equipment, we have improved the current Sigur software, adding a number of functions aimed at improving the convenience of identification processes, on the one hand, and on the other, increasing the severity of access through interaction with third-party face recognition systems, temperature measurement and other solutions:
- support of EMV technology for identification by bank cards, while both real cards and virtual ones from applications such as Apple Wallet, Google Pay and others can be used as identifiers, depending on the manufacturer of the device;
- expanded integration with video surveillance systems - support for temperature verification in different access modes (extended face recognition when integrating with Trassir and NtechLab);
- added verification logic by mask and temperature - this information can be transferred to the software by external systems and some integrated equipment, since it is Sigur, and not external systems, that determines the logic of access to the object;
- integration with Beward face recognition terminals with support for temperature verification and the presence of a mask on the face and with Hikvision thermal imagers;
- the ability to create templates for operator's rights and to add a hierarchy of access modes - this makes the system more understandable and convenient in administration and allows to differentiate operator's rights, making the system more functional and safer;
- integration with Dormakaba locks - the user can assign different modes of access rights through the Sigur software interface now.
The 2021 year was dedicated to the launch of new lines of equipment with completely new capabilities, as well as to the preparation for the first release of new Sigur software with a public REST API available to all customers and a Web interface of several functions.
A lot of time was devoted to the development of new web version of the Sigur software. We have moved from building a platform to creating specific functional blocks on its basis:
- The report designer (Reports), presented for the first time at the Securika 2021 exhibition, is a tool with flexible analytical capabilities, which allows, based on information about employees' passages, to receive almost any reporting, depending on the needs and specific tasks of the business.
Reports are generated asynchronously that allows to continue using the software while building a report. - Public REST API that allows to use a unified approach to the interaction of various systems within the overall infrastructure of the object. This is an understandable tool for extending the functionality of the end system by including the capabilities of any third-party products that support the standard way of interacting with the REST API.
- Management of guest passes (Visitor Management). Now this feature is implemented in the beta version, wh ere the final improvements are underway. In addition to the standard functionality, there is already an opportunity for the future to use this block as a separate application - a tool for creating applications that works at the facility even without using a full-fledged access control system.
New Sigur software is a cross-platform solution that will be implemented on a web interface. The independent functional modules of the system ensure its reliability and the microservice model provides new business opportunities, guaranteeing stability and reliability.
Company’s news
Our company celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2021. It is a long time, and we have already achieved some success, but we are able to do much more.
The current year has been marked for us by many events, among which I would like to note the opening of the Sigur representative office in Moscow. This is a part of our long-term development strategy, which includes strengthening our positions and expanding our presence in the Central Federal District.
In addition to the opening of a Sigur representative office in Moscow at the beginning of the year, the company underwent other important structural changes, for example, the development department was expanded by allocating a department in its structure responsible for full testing of implemented functions (Quality Assurance).
The outgoing year was also marked by a new vector of customer service development. We have updated the Knowledge Center, wh ere we offer highly specialized programs and help everyone who wants to master complex technical solutions in practice. In addition, we started providing customers with advanced technical support now.
We have paid special attention to the reorganization and to the development of Sigur customer service in 2021. We have tried not only to develop and implement new services for customers, but also to improve existing service standards. For example, the speed of a response to telephone inquiries from customers in technical support has increased several times.
During 2021 we paid great attention to participation in various events of the security market and related industries. Sigur experts took part in more than 40 offline events, including the Securika Moscow exhibition, ETM Forums, the International Metallurgical Summit and the PROIPVideo conference. Participation in business events helps us to share our knowledge and to learn from the experience of our colleagues and partners.