Security, at least its electronic brothers and sisters, has been in the cloud since the beginning.

The bottom line may be Wrangler Jeans. Just as security and business applications are blending together through technology, asset tracking, especially in retail, is fitting into enterprises as snug as a pair of blue jeans.

There is a dirty bomb music video. There are at least three dirty bomb movies. But, when it comes to reality, such weapons are fairly easy to assemble and activate.

These days, when it comes to storage of video, it’s choice – not chance – that determines security’s success at meeting its mission with use of technology. This is true for enterprise security leaders at the biggest organizations, where large numbers of cameras create ingest, frame rate, image quality and physical storage cost challenges.

There are numerous ways to skin the mass notification cat, according to numerous enterprise security leaders. Mass notification is a step up from emergency communications and comprises numerous ways to get the word out to the appropriate people inside and outside buildings as well as through computer networks and mobile devices.

I walked every day with a best friend to Wilson grammar school. And, if memory serves me, the most dangerous things in my school life back then were the too-warm cartons of milk and Miss Hildenbrandt, armed with her fiendish ruler.

Attention enterprise security leaders: Biometrics, including face and voice recognition, are not only getting better but better integrated with other security technologies and mobile devices to provide higher security, more convenience or both.

Phillip Riordan, vice president for student life at Lynn University, Boca Raton, Fla., has added a third gatehouse recently to provide access control to his campus. But he knows that the guardhouses are more than modular buildings.

Jim Frankild sought out technology to improve his situational awareness. Timothy Phelps wanted security video for judge-pleasing evidence. Wes Hill created a unique metropolitan area network. J.B. Van Hollen rolled out a crime alerting system. In Chicago, at the NATO Summit earlier this year, one of the world’s most sophisticated integrated security systems bridged myriad transportation, school, street and even home cameras to safety contain protesters. And Bryant Garrett finally turned in his VCRs for state-of-art technology. Then there is Ken Deck, who had to concentrate on protecting a vulnerable perimeter.

It was about 4:30 a.m. in Oak Ridge, Tenn., when sensors on the perimeter intrusion detection and assessment system alarmed. There was an unauthorized entry into a high-security, protected area. A well-trained and heavily armed guard force responded.