Family and version position
Unity or Alta, version against current, and what your support position actually is. Where documentation and quotes use legacy names, what they map to now.
// AVIGILON HEALTH CHECK · HANS STUDY · ONTARIO, CANADA
Avigilon health check
Avigilon is now two product families rather than one, and a surprising number of owners cannot say which one they are in. That is not carelessness. The same software has carried three names in recent years, and support articles, integrator quotes and internal documentation are all still using different ones.
First, which family are you in
Since Motorola brought Avigilon, Openpath and Ava Security under one brand in 2023, there have been two distinct lines with different architectures and different futures.
- Avigilon Unity is the on-premise line and the original Avigilon lineage. Avigilon Control Center is now Unity Video. Access Control Manager is now Unity Access. Avigilon Cloud Services provides remote access on top.
- Avigilon Alta is cloud-native and assembled from the acquisitions: Ava Security for video and Openpath for access control. Different architecture, different hardware expectations, different operating model.
Those are not two editions of one product. They are two families, and the honest first task in any review is establishing which one you actually own, what your version position is inside it, and what each path forward costs.
What the health check covers
Access platform exposure
If you are on Access Control Manager, now named Unity Access, where your version sits in Avigilon's current support position. That is worth establishing deliberately rather than assuming.
Storage and retention
Avigilon's stream management approach changes the storage arithmetic compared with other platforms. Retention is frequently sized on assumptions carried over from a different vendor's maths.
Camera generation and analytics
Appearance Search and the self-learning analytics depend on what the cameras can produce. Mixed-generation estates deliver mixed results, and it is rarely documented which cameras are contributing.
Server and site architecture
Site and server design, appliance versus virtual deployment, multi-site behaviour, and whether the topology still matches the estate it grew into.
Resilience
Failover behaviour, recording continuity during an outage, backup and restore that has been tested rather than assumed.
Network and connectivity
Bandwidth against real stream configuration, PoE budget across the device estate, traffic separation, and what cloud services expect from the connection.
Security and hardening
Device credentials, certificate handling, encrypted communication, operator privilege model, and the distance from published hardening guidance.
Where Avigilon estates commonly sit
The structural questions on this platform are mostly about position and direction rather than about misconfiguration.
- Nobody can state the family and version with confidence, because three generations of naming are in circulation across the documentation.
- An access platform whose future was never decided, with an ACM estate running and no position taken on where it goes.
- Retention sized on another vendor's assumptions, which is how storage ends up short despite the calculation appearing correct.
- Analytics capability assumed estate-wide when only part of the camera population supports it.
- A cloud or on-premise decision made by drift rather than by a deliberate comparison of what each costs over the next five years.
Who this is for
Organisations with an Avigilon estate facing an upgrade, an expansion, or a budget cycle, and anyone who needs a clear written position on Unity versus Alta before committing to a direction. Particularly useful where the original integrator is no longer involved.
What you receive
The deliverable is a prioritized remediation plan, not a pile of observations you have to triage yourself.
- A findings report organized by severity and by system layer, readable by both the security team and the IT team.
- A written position on family and version, with the cost consequences of each path set out plainly.
- Specific, configuration-level recommendations tied to published guidance.
- A working session to walk through the findings and answer what the report raises.
Recommendations do not change based on who is selling. There is no product being steered toward at the end of this.
Delivery and scope
Remote delivery via the DHD, a remote access device, where the system cannot be reached over the network.
How the work is delivered
Remote
Screen share, supplied configuration exports, logs and documentation. Most of what a health check examines is visible without anyone travelling, and this is how the majority of engagements run.
DHD
The DHD, a pre-configured remote access device, ships to the site. Somebody on site plugs it into power and network, which takes minutes and needs no technical skill. It provides the access needed to examine the system properly, then ships back. Covers configuration, shipping both directions, and retrieval.
Cheaper and faster than travel for a single site, and it is what makes distance stop mattering. A site in another province costs the same to review as one an hour away.
On site
For work that needs someone in the room: physical inspection, cabling and rack conditions, commissioning witness, or an environment that cannot be reached remotely. Travel and on-site time are added to the written quote before work starts.
What a health check does not include
Listed because an unstated exclusion is what turns an agreed scope into an argument at invoice time, and that is the exact failure this practice exists to review other people for.
- Remediation. The report says what to fix; fixing it is a separate engagement or your own team.
- Configuration changes. Nothing is altered on a live system during a review.
- Licence, hardware or software costs, which are yours and are bought direct.
- Vendor support cases, escalations, or dealings with your integrator on your behalf.
- On-site attendance, unless added explicitly.
- Ongoing monitoring or a retainer. A health check is a point-in-time assessment.
Related advisory areas
Video surveillance design →
Purpose per view, pixel density, storage sizing. Platform neutral, before selection.
Access control design →
Door schedules, hardware selection, power calculations, egress and code.
Pre-purchase design review →
If a migration between families has been quoted and you want it checked first.
Health checks for other platforms
Same structure and the same fixed pricing across every platform. The layers reviewed differ, because the ways these systems fail differ.
Genetec Security Center →
Architecture, roles and sizing under real load.
C-CURE 9000 →
CrossFire, iSTAR estate, SQL dependency and integrations.
Milestone XProtect →
Edition, Device Pack currency and support entitlement.
AXIS Camera Station →
Edge analytics, and the device estate that limits them.
Lenel OnGuard →
Version position, database age, and access level sprawl.
Kantech EntraPass →
Edition ceiling, gateway topology, and controller firmware.
Establish where you stand before you are asked to choose
A decision between two product families is easier to make from a written position than from a vendor conversation, and considerably easier before a renewal than during one.
Independent of Avigilon, Motorola Solutions, and every integrator involved. See the independence policy.