2025 ULC Changes – Is Your Central Station Ready?
As the 2025 ULC changes loom, we want to ask – are your central stations ready? Because we are. Hot redundancy is of the utmost importance to Armstrongs, a Becklar Monitoring Company.
In 2025, as per the Underwriters Laboratories of Canada (ULC), big changes are coming – and 2025 will be here before you know it.
These changes include, but are not limited to, the requirements for a redundant monitoring site. The new CAN/ULC-S301-CAN/ULC-S561 requirement states that a redundant site is “A physical location that is able to provide all of the essential functions of a signal receiving centre should an automated signal receiving centre become unable to process signals.” The requirement is that an organization must have a minimum of two signal receiving monitoring centres that are in compliance with ULC Standards.
According to the ULC presentation at the 2019 CANASA Symposium, this is how it will work:
- Automation system servers and database maintained in redundant data centers
- Signal receiving centre operators log into service via VPN to disposition signals
- Customers can only access their own information
- Automation software shall be capable of separating end users.
- Customers/alarm service subscribers experience no difference in service
- Must follow the requirements of a signal receiving centre (whole or in part)
Dan Small, President of Armstrongs – A Becklar Company, stated in a recent SP&T article, “these new ULC requirements represent probably the biggest change in the monitoring industry in Canada in decades. There have been technological changes, but as far as regulations go… it’s certainly the most impactful.” In years past, central stations have built redundancy itself in redundant receivers. The new requirement that will take effect in 2025 will require automatic redundancy in dealing with signal traffic and is the first time that it can not be housed in a single location.
How Armstrongs, A Becklar Company, Has Prepared
In advance of the 2025 changes, we invested millions in our central stations to ensure that they would not only meet the new standards but exceed them. Our new Laval, Quebec central station has been built as a state-of-the-art data and monitoring facility. It is the primary home for all our Canadian subscriber information and stores all our company’s receivers. Our Quebec centre has also introduced toll-free reroute technology into our stations, which allows toll-free phone numbers to be routed over primary, secondary, and tertiary paths. This process ensures that any failures or breakdowns in a single site/circuit will not impact the successful delivery of alarm signals to our platform.
Additionally, as part of Becklar Monitoring, we have coverage across North America, with multiple redundant sites across both Canada and the United States. As well, with Becklar, we have increased size and influence in the industry, allowing expansion of partnerships with key telecom providers, ensuring the shortest and cleanest paths for alarm signals to all our centre
Key Components of Full Redundancy
Throughout 2023 and 2024, the Becklar Monitoring IT team has been focused on ensuring we are fully hot redundant. In addition to meeting or exceeding all the new ULC requirements, we have also taken the following steps including:
- Configured our data storage and server infrastructure for full redundancy:
- Our best-in-class, industry-leady virtualization functionality is delivered through VMware.
- Our structure provides easy and seamless migration and provides immediate failover.
- Ensured that our automation software is running efficiently to quickly process urgent alarms.
- Ensured that all subscriber data is secure, including the encryption of data that is at rest and data in transit.
- Continuously monitored our systems for any vulnerabilities.
- Continuously monitored for anomalous security events, and then quickly remedying the events.
- Added a new phone system – the Avaya Phone System:
- Ensures that critical signals are delivered through industry-leading Avaya PBX and the latest SIP technology.
- Allows multiple outbound and inbound lines, voicemail, call routing and has call management features.
- Helps to eliminate fraud and reduce security threats through hardened architecture and configuration.
- Ensured network redundancy with our own block of IP addresses, ensuring efficient routing of IP alarm traffic to our carriers (VideoTron, Rogers and Bell):
- This technique ensures that we are hot redundant, and not vulnerable to any single carrier outage.
- Added VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN technology to allow for extensive fiber paths, ensuring that all data between alarm panels uses the optimal paths, allowing for the highest level of productivity.
- Installed a next generation firewall which provides integration intrusion prevention and allows us to identify threat intelligence sources, block risky application traffic, and more.
In addition to our IT team’s hard work, we have also established policies that continuously monitor for vulnerabilities, prioritizing the most critical ones for immediate remediation, as well as monthly system updates and patches and scheduled system assessments. The strategic combination of our policies, assessments and maintenance allows Becklar Monitoring to have continuous hot redundancy.
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Learn more about how Armstrongs comprehensive suite of monitoring solutions will benefit you and your valuable subscribers!
Armstrongs and Becklar Monitoring – Fully Redundant Across Canada
As the 2025 ULC changes loom, we want to ask – are your central stations ready? Because we are. Hot redundancy is of the utmost importance to Armstrongs, a Becklar Monitoring Company. We have gladly invested our time, resources and effort to multiple fully redundant, state-of-the art central stations across North America that are in compliance with ULC. Our priority is to make sure that we’re ready for 2025 and beyond, and that our valued dealers and subscribers have peace of mind.
Ready to learn more about Armstrongs? Talk to our team today – sales@armcom.ca
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