ASIS Day Two: It’s a Solutions World Ranging from U of Illinois and Arkansas School District to Courthouses

Plenty of success stories and end users seem to be spending again.

Milestone Systems, the open platform company in IP video management software and Axis Gold Application Development Partner (ADP), is the solution of choice for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for central control and local access with flexible integration options over time as the security system is rolled out across campus.

By sheer numbers, the urban campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is impressive: The campus is frequented by roughly 53,000 students, staff and visitors on a daily basis; is home to 11 million books, the largest public university library collection in the country; boasts 14 major sporting facilities, 17 colleges and instructional units; and employs 11 Nobel laureates and 18 Pulitzer Prize winners as part of its faculty.

Nestled within the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign, a joint community of about 180,000, the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system is the size of a small city. As such, it has dealt with everyday community issues like thefts on and around campus, including a string of stolen laptops inside the university's libraries, as well as other stolen items elsewhere. With more than 400 main facilities on campus, the 55-member police department has a lot of ground to cover.

It's no surprise that progressive public safety officials were looking for a way to provide real time, reliable security information to police while saving money, which meant consolidating smaller, autonomous analog systems that dotted the campus.

"One detective had so many software programs running on his computer to manage all the different video systems that his computer wouldn't work," said Detective Tim Hetrick of the University of Illinois Police Department Technical Services division.

"If security is decentralized on a major university then police cannot use that system to its maximum capacity," Police Chief Barbara O'Connor said. "We have developed a policy where anyone on campus purchasing a camera system must have it approved by the chief of police."

The solution was a gradual, three- to five-year deployment of roughly 4,500 cameras that would be managed in a central location using a single video management platform: Milestone XProtect Corporate.

Like many universities, determining the need and making the decision to install a surveillance system is left to the individual department, whether it's the Housing Administration, College of Engineering or a campus research laboratory. While the department heads have the final word over the purchase, technical specialists led by Detective Hetrick from the university police, along with system integrator Current Technologies Corporation of Downers Grove, Ill., now provide assessments and equipment recommendations.

All new installations will be managed by Milestone XProtect Corporate, an IP-based video software system that centralizes the surveillance system management into a single, easy-to-use solution. Because the software is capable of integrating with more than 80 different video surveillance vendors, individual departments can select head end equipment that fits their needs and budget, without worrying about integration issues with the Milestone software.

Because of the Milestone Systems open platform, police are moving forward with testing the integration of the system with door access control. As of August 2010, using Andover Controls software and integration services through Schneider Electric, the interoperable solution is up and running at a test site at the police department.

In all, about 10 departments have already completed their surveillance camera installations, including organizations like the Campus Rec Center, which manages the two-year old, $ 54 million Activities and Recreation Center, one of the country's largest on-campus indoor recreation centers. Three other indoor recreational facilities and a host of outdoor sports fields have been completed with the assistance of Hetrick and Current Technologies. Another 30 or so additional departments are in the process of deploying IP cameras and other equipment.

The vast majority of network cameras are provided by Axis Communications. The projects underway now range anywhere from 6 cameras to about 70 cameras in size and feature a mixture of fixed, megapixel and pan/tilt/zoom cameras.

Each department at the University of Illinois at Urbana also retains the ability to monitor its own video, although Chief Barbara O'Connor's policy is that video is also fed directly back to the police dispatch center over the campus' fiber backbone, where on-duty dispatchers can view live video or access archived events. Administration rights are also centralized at the dispatch center, handled by a dedicated police department staffer tasked with Milestone system management, including software updates, access rights and other associated tasks. All police officers as well as the universitys telecommunications/IT staff will also be trained on the software.

"Making the argument for surveillance cameras can be particularly tough in the higher education environment, but the efficacy of the Milestone system helped to make the case to campus administrators," says Chief O'Connor.

Allied Telesis has designed and implemented an upgrade enabling the convergence of two networks for the Hoxie, Arkansas School District.

By creating a connection between the IP surveillance network and core data network through Allied Telesis Quality of Service (QoS) protocols and Network Application Controls, the upgrade enables delivery of high-bandwidth, real-time surveillance video over the existing core data network without disruption to the district's daily school operations.

Allied Telesis began to supply its networking gear, maintenance, and technical support as well as network engineering consultation to the Hoxie School District more than a decade ago. Furthering its long-standing relationship with the Company, Hoxie School District turned to Allied Telesis to deploy an IP-based security system across its campus environment. The District sought to provide security within halls, offices, and educational and recreation facilities, serving approximately 80 classrooms, each with audio-enabled surveillance cameras, yielding a total of 178 cameras.

Based on its experience and knowledge in designing high-speed, multi-play converged networks, Allied Telesis deployed its AT-9000/28SP Series of switches with Power over Ethernet (PoE) capabilities for the district's IP-video security surveillance system. Additionally, it created a port-based virtual local area network (VLAN) to separate the school's data and IP surveillance network, ensuring against zero degradation of the network from video 'bandwidth-eating' network resources and lowering productivity standards for students, faculty, and administration.

In addition to addressing the bandwidth issues of the network, the team was able to create a 'controlled connection' between the new IP Surveillance network and the existing Allied Telesis layer-3 core network switch, enabling specified school network users access to camera feeds from the surveillance network. In doing so, both Quality of Service and Network Application Control features were leveraged to virtually eliminate network disruptions typically caused by uncontrolled video streams.

“Delivering next-generation educational services and a secure environment to students, faculty, and staff is of paramount importance,” said Dennis Truxler, superintendent, Hoxie, Arkansas School District. +We further engaged with Allied Telesis to fulfill our mission to deliver communications services to connect people and enable a more collaborative educational environment.

In a move also specific to education but also local government agencies, Cisco used ASIS to announce a series of product innovations that expand the core capabilities of its open-platform safety & security solution that helps communities transform the way they protect people, property, and critical infrastructure. As part of the Cisco Smart+Connected Communities initiative, the solution focuses on improving quality of life of citizens by helping create a safe and secure living environment that is a foundation for supporting sustainable social, environmental and economic growth.

A new simplified video surveillance management solution for educational institutions. The solution aims to make it easier for schools, colleges and universities to respond quickly and effectively to security events, and provide a safe and secure learning environment to underpin the skills development needed to sustain future economic opportunity. The new solution provides an intuitive user interface for viewing live cameras, quick access to video archives and an integrated mapping interface, together with video paging capabilities.

A unified Command and Control application for city and enterprise operations with the introduction of Cisco Physical Security Operations Manager software, enabling interoperability across video surveillance, access control, and incident response. The solution helps cities, agencies and enterprises quickly detect incidents, correlate and prioritize key information enabling faster & more effective collaboration among incident response personnel. Cisco Physical Security Operations Manager forms an integral part of Cisco's Safety & Security Solution which is a foundation element of Smart+Connected Communities.

Introduced the industry's first medianet-enabled video surveillance camera that can be automatically configured on the network to simplify and speed deployments across urban and enterprise environments. As part of Cisco's wider strategy to bring medianet capabilities to all video endpoints, the Cisco Video Surveillance 4000 Series IP Camera fully supports Cisco's medianet-ready architecture for video, dramatically reducing the time and skills needed to configure cameras once plugged into Cisco Ethernet switches. A medianet automatically optimizes video experiences for the network, the device and the access format to dramatically simplify deployments.

A Cisco video analytics solution that runs directly on the new 4500 Series IP HD cameras. The solution provides a highly-scalable way to analyze and take actionable decisions across large numbers of cameras deployed in the urban environment or the enterprise. Cisco's edge-based analytics solution uses software running on each camera, and provides an innovative way to scale deployments without the need for a dedicated centralized server-based analytics solution.

A new Cisco 2900 Series of pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) Internet Protocol Dome cameras with full-feature indoor and outdoor support for urban environments. The cameras offer 360-degree continuous pan rotation, H.264 video compression, and are designed for superior performance, high image quality, and ease of deployment.

Finally, new H.264 analog video encoding capabilities for the Cisco Physical Security MultiServices Platform for Video Surveillance, which provide a rapid way to integrate analog cameras already deployed across the urban environment. The new solution enables up to 48 analog cameras to be connected in a two-rack-unit system and aims to provide customers with a migration path to IP to preserve their investment.

Says Leslie Thomas, IT director, Georgetown County, South Carolina

"Cisco's open-platform approach to safety and security was a key factor in our thinking as we looked to integrate physical security at Georgetown County's new Judicial Center and Detention Center alongside upgrades to our Cisco Unified Communications Manager, wireless and data security technologies. As a result of the project, we have been able to significantly improve communications between the court system, public safety and IT departments and enhance public safety throughout the county."

Says Jim Lavelle, manager, Holyoke Gas & Electric, Massachusetts

"The vision that the City of Holyoke has set out with Cisco to revitalize the city as a Smart+Connected Community places greater emphasis on developing a safe environment for citizens both in terms of the infrastructure and connectivity needed to support our emergency response services and also in terms of maintaining the safe and reliable delivery of energy to our customers. Working in conjunction with the Holyoke Police Department, HG&E is already engaged in efforts to both decrease crime and improve the quality of life in our City. As both a utility and a service provider to the city, we believe Cisco's urban security solutions and vision for video will play a key role in helping us achieve the community's goals."