printer friendly version

MAS Authentication Server

Access control systems are reliant on databases to store user information, keep logs and serve as reference for access control rules. For biometric systems, databases are all the more important as it serves as a reference for verification and identification of users’ biometric data.

The speed of verification and identification depends on various factors i.e. the complexity of the algorithm used, the size of the database and finally the speed at which the physical IT equipment being used to store the database can operate. When a database receives a query from a front end GUI – whether it be a POS, CCTV, access control or stock management application – it starts resolving the query by starting at the head of the database table and works its way down the table of stored information in a First-In-First-Out or sequential basis.

And herein lies a failing – especially for biometric systems – of databases. When an inordinate large amount of users and their biometric information are stored on a database, the system will gradually slow down and eventually will become so slow as to be virtually useless for the user and they could just as well have used a proximity card based system with the same result. The question is how does one overcome this inherent failing?

This is where ViRDI’s MAS Extendable Authentication Server provides a solution. It is in fact not a single server solution but rather a software solution spanning over multiple servers. The system is governed by the Dispatch Server which manages the distribution of queries to the authentication servers, manages the storage of fingerprint templates to the database management server as well as managing bottlenecks in the verification and identification process. By distributing the verification and identification queries over multiple authentication servers without unnecessary data such as user ID, name or other personal information we are able to achieve an identification speed of 1:1 000 000 per second on a 1:N system.

The MAS server solution has been created specifically for clients that have an excessive amount of users on the access control solution and the larger the database, the faster the solution becomes since more servers are deployed and the more processing power becomes available. It uses a customised version of the UNIS Command and Control software, Windows Server 64 bit OS and Microsoft SQL Server. Hardware requirements are an Intel i7 or bigger CPU, 4 GB RAM or higher and AC6000 units with customised firmware.

Share this article:

Further reading: