London Landmark 'The Gherkin' Upgrades to Integrated IP Security With IndigoVision System

Editor / Provider: IndigoVision | Updated: 9/29/2011 | Article type: Commercial Markets

IndigoVision's integrated IP Video surveillance system has been deployed as part of a major security upgrade at one of London's most iconic skyscrapers. 30 St Mary Axe, widely known as ‘The Gherkin' is situated on the former site of The Baltic Exchange and at 180m tall, is the third tallest building in the City of London. ‘The Gherkin' is a multi-tenanted commercial office block occupied by a number of the world's best known insurance and legal businesses.

The distributed and open architecture of IndigoVision's IP Video system provides the ideal installation platform for the migration of legacy CCTV and the seamless integration with other security systems. Using this advanced capability, Universal Security Systems Ltd, IndigoVision's Authorised Partner, implemented a fully integrated surveillance, access control and intercom solution.

The new surveillance system replaced old analogue CCTV matrix and DVR equipment with a fully digital network solution using an IP-based distributed virtual matrix. This allows any component in the system to be located at any point on the IP network, delivering a scalable and flexible solution that was a key factor in IndigoVision being chosen for the project. All of the original analogue fixed and PTZ cameras were reused and the migration was achieved without any disruption to building operations, an important consideration for a building of this type with diverse activity occurring 24/7.

IndigoVision's ability to stream high-quality, fully synchronised audio across the network alongside the video, allowed Universal Security Systems to develop an innovative video intercom system, recording audio from existing intercom equipment with the appropriate video from nearby cameras.

The security of the video archive, through the use of a resilient and redundant recording solution, was another important factor for the building owners choosing IndigoVision. Video is recorded on 6 standalone IndigoVision Network Video Recorders (NVRs), with a 7th used as a failover backup. Should any NVR fail or be taken off-line for maintenance, the backup automatically starts recording in its place. The standalone NVRs have a Linux-based software engine and a fault tolerant design with dual redundant network and power supply connections.

Two ‘Control Center' workstations are used in the Security Office to monitor live video and analyse recorded footage from all of the cameras. ‘Control Center' provides advanced analysis tools such as motion thumbnails for fast incident review. Guard tours, sequences and Privacy Zones are all supported, with video being displayed on PC viewing panes or traditional monitors. Operators can view an interactive map of the entire site to quickly locate cameras and alarms.

Alarm Monitoring Improves Awareness Through More Services

Editor / Provider: a&s International | Updated: 9/15/2011 | Article type: Tech Corner

Alarm monitoring is one of the oldest security businesses. When away from one's home or business, alarm monitoring offers the reassurance of knowing someone is vigilantly standing by. Should the worst happen — fire, broken window or intrusion — professionals will have taken the appropriate response. The right authorities will be notified by alarm monitoring operators, providing peace of mind.

Global security monitoring revenues totaled about US$40 billion, according to First Research in a July report. This encompasses residential and commercial alarm monitoring. Europe and the U.S. are the largest security system markets, dominated by ADT Security Services, Securitas and G4S.

Effective alarm monitoring requires a stable infrastructure, robust enough to not miss a single signal. However, wired or wireless transmission media provide unique benefits and drawbacks. Redundancy depends on multiple technologies. Signal priority makes sense of which alarms are most important. The majority of alarms are false, wasting the time and resources of law enforcement and other first responders. Newer systems have the infrastructure to support audio or video monitoring as secondary verification. However, these systems require more bandwidth or a complete system overhaul, as more customers rely on mobile devices.

Our coverage explores alarm monitoring for commercial and residential applications. We explore the market potential for each, along with key technology developments, usage issues and challenges. While there is no single solution, a successful one combines people, processes and technology to solve problems quickly.

For business owners, alarm monitoring offers unbeatable value for securing assets. a&s examines the market conditions for commercial monitoring, as well as technology trends and usage issues.

The commercial market dominates the alarm monitoring landscape . “Growth rates are highest for commercial applications where there are more significant cost savings to be made by outsourcing monitoring services or replacing or augmenting guard services with monitoring,” said Ewan Lamont , Market Analyst at IMS Research. “Overall market growth, for residential and commercial services combined, is forecast to be approximately 4.2 percent CAGR.”

Alarm monitoring is largely concentrated in the U.S. and Europe. The security systems services industry in the U.S. includes about 5,000 companies with combined annual revenues of US$15 billion, according to First Research. However, the 50 largest companies generate 60 percent of the US industry's revenue. China issued alarm-monitoring regulations in 2010, but monitoring centers are largely operated by the police, except for private centers run by Secom in Beijing and ADT in Shanghai.

Growth in the commercial sector is driven by new office construction, which has slowed due to economic conditions. “On the commercial side of things, new businesses are opening at a slower pace, which hurts that market,” said Gary Perlin, Director of CCTV Products, Tri-Ed/ Northern Video Distribution.

“There is still a healthy market for retrofitting existing systems with new technology like IP-based systems.”

Commercial accounts had less attrition compared to residential ones, said Morgan Hertel, VP and GM for Mace Central Station. Its business is split 65:35 between commercial and residential alarm monitoring.

Demand remains strong for alarm monitoring, as customers look for higher levels of performance, convenience and simplification of technologies. “This industry has been on a very consistent growth path for around 20 years, even performing well in difficult economic times,” said Rich Hewitt, Director of Commercial Sales for Protection One. Commercial monitoring offers more options beyond fire and security alarms. Some businesses monitor crucial equipment, such as freezer temperatures or power supply to industrial air pumps for fish farms or aquariums, said Tye-San Yap, GM of Certis Cisco Security, a Singaporean security service provider. If alarms are triggered for equipment, operators will notify the customer, saving on downtime.

Remote Video Monitoring
As monitoring stations improve their infrastructure, video is becoming more accessible. This helps for secondary verification of alarm signals, reducing the number of false alarms. Video monitoring is one of the fastest growing services in remote monitoring, worth nearly $250 million in the Americas and EMEA in 2009. “Everybody is a winner with remote video monitoring services,” Lamont said. “Alarm dealers can make bigger margins on remote video services compared to alarm monitoring, as well as generating revenue from increased equipment sales, installation and maintenance.”

Xtralis recently acquired German HeiTel Digital Video for its remote video monitoring, demonstrating its potential. Xtralis' annual growth in the video monitoring market is expected to exceed 10 to 15 percent in the years to come, said Kim Loy, Deputy GM of Global Security, Xtralis. [NextPage]

Government Monitoring
City surveillance projects are a perfect fit for alarm and video monitoring, with a team on standby to respond in time. The London Borough of Bexley selected Siemens Building Technologies to run its town center monitoring center. Siemens performed all video surveillance services and took over the operating center in April 2010. The Borough of Bexley became London's safest borough this February, up from fifth place. Video monitoring is more efficient and has increased the amount of evidence provided to the police by 17 percent, according to Siemens Building Technologies in a prepared statement. Camera downtime has also been reduced, with asset ability running at 99.8 percent.

Public space surveillance operators must be licensed by the UK government through the Security Industry Authority. This ensures operators are competent to undertake their role and includes criminal record checks. “Considering town center schemes , a key trend is the rollout of virtual matrix solutions,” said Tony Allen, Chairman of the Security Equipment Manufacturers Section, British Security Industry Association. “The advantage here is that these are able to seamlessly bring together geographically dispersed digital and analog equipment, from multiple locations, allowing control room operators using a map-based graphical user interface to point and click on a specific areas so incidents can be tracked and dealt with in a timely manner.”

Registering Alarms
An alarm center is all about getting the signals. Most signaling communication is usually by public switched telephone networks (PSTN), as it is the cheapest option, said Brian Kelly, MD of Bold Communications, a provider of alarm-monitoring software. “However IP/GPRS is becoming more popular, as it is more secure and can save money.”

Commercial sites can opt for either phone lines or IP, but insurance requirements typically mandate higher-grade connections — at least Grade 3 or 4 — with dual paths, Kelly said.

Lamont added both IP and cellular communications are relatively well-established transmission methods, but one is yet to rise above the other for alarm monitoring. .

Redundancy can be done in a number of ways, to make sure alarms are not missed. ADT operates two alarm-receiving centers in Manchester that are each large enough to house all staffers, should something happen to either building. “Each has two telephone providers into the building,” said Dominic White, Head of the UK Customer Service Centre, ADT Security Services, which covers the U.K. and Ireland. “If British Telecom goes down, a signal could go in on another provider.” .

Both sites have diesel generators connected to uninterruptible power supplies, along with servers duplicated across sites, to keep downtime to a minimum. “If you take an alarm signal from your home, that alarm presents to both alarm-receiving centers, then the system decides which center takes the alarm,” White said. “So we have no single point of failure to the customer.” .

Redundancy also featured into Mace's central station, which receives signals from three different telecom providers, as well as copper and fiber signals on a gigabit network. “We invested heavily on a platform to take all the things that might come in,” Hertel said. The platform supports alarm monitoring, along with medical monitoring and geolocation devices from vehicles. .

Once the alarm reaches the monitoring center, operators must decide how to respond. Signals from sites will be verified and filtered before reporting them to police, Yap said. The majority of signals sent from a monitored site are not true alarms, but usually warnings about low battery, AC failure or sensor trouble. [NextPage]

Answering Alarms
A primary alarm-monitoring duty is notifying the authorities. However, the last thing first responders want is to pull up, only to find an alarm was tripped by the wind. Alarm-monitoring operators review alarms to eliminate false ones, before passing that information on to the police. “In the U.K., it's two strikes and you're out,” White said. “If the police are called more than twice, then the police will withdraw services from that site. For every false alarm, there will be an action. We may contact the customer for additional training or additional delays. We might change where the alarms or sensors are to better suit them.”

The majority of agencies do not require any other verification from the alarm; they just go to the event. “That being said, a number of agencies are working toward requiring video verification,” Hertel said. “Certain fines are starting to get levied.”

Most information sent from the central station to the authorities, such as 911 centers in the U.S., rely on phone calls. “This in itself is a time-consuming event, prone to human error,” said Joe Sanchez, Senior VP of Customer Operations for Protection One. “Additionally, protocol and standardization vary from agency to agency. Central stations traditionally attempt to standardize; however, their overall success rate is dependent on the responding agency.”

Much of the industry is several years behind the latest technology. “A number of agencies have considered and implemented electronic relay, which is still in the testing phase with select monitoring centers,” said Craig Pyle, Product Development Manager, Vivint.

Some cities are adopting standards of communication between alarm-monitoring centers and emergency operators. Houston was the first city to adopt the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol, which is estimated to save $1 million to $2 million annually by successfully transferring data and reducing the number of traditional phone dispatches. “Based on the electronic solution, the standardization in process and data verification required to transmit emergency information is done expeditiously and virtually error-free,” Sanchez said.

Secondary verification reduces false alarms significantly. “In U.K., every customer who wants a police response must register with the police agency to provide their information to the police,” Kelly said. “If there is video surveillance associated with the alarm, the details, including the video alarm clip, can be sent to the police. If it was a lone-worker alarm triggered, the audio data would be forwarded to the police.”

Alarm Priority
In general, fire and panic signals are given priority over standard burglary and trouble signals. “Programming the alarm and the panel, combined with the technology at the central station, is the key in defining alarm signal transmissions,” Sanchez said. “Manufacturers and industry standards, based on the type of installation being monitored, dictate the response time.”

ADT's alarm-receiving centers prioritize alarms by type. “We deal with 95 percent of fire alarms in 30 seconds,” White said. “For intruder alarms, 95 percent are handled within 60 seconds and personal attack is broadly similar. They're standards we adhere to in the U.K.”

Software Developments
Monitoring center software has to handle a wide range of signals, be scalable and display alarm data in a comprehensible format to operators. As operators interact with software and hardware on a daily basis, a good solution needs to be flexible and account for human usage.

Mace's central station manages alarms for 500 dealers, who service 75,000 subscribers. It customizes the work flow up-front, so operators who respond to emergency call will answer in the dealer's name. “We're more customized than anything else,” Hertel said. “A lot of things the dealer decides up front, then he can change them online through the Web portal. He can update the work flow or change something on an account.”

A system health check can ensure products are up and running, such as IP line monitoring, Loy said. This can cover fire and gas detection, access control, intrusion, and video analytics for commercial users.

The wakefulness of the operators can be programmed into the software with randomized prompts. “If someone is at the third shift at 3 a.m., they have 30 seconds to respond on the keyboard to know if they're there,” said Christopher Brackett, GM of AlarmSoft. “If the operator fails to check in, the system sends an email or text to the central station manager. If a fire alarm comes in and the operator's asleep with no response for 90 seconds, the software will take over.” [NextPage]

Real-Life Usage
Alarm monitoring is expressly designed for worst-case scenarios. Business owners understand that their premises are secured by a remote team, even when no one is in the office.

Large alarm centers are best equipped to deal with emergencies, with greater consolidation of smaller dealers or control rooms. When ADT bought Broadview in 2010, it estimated it would take 18 months for integration, including upgrading the central station software platform. “In the case of alarm central stations, the software has been uniquely written to meet specific needs,” Perlin said. “Even two stations operating on the same platform will have enough unique code written into their software to make integration a challenge.”

While it is possible to support legacy systems, they are more difficult to service. “As a system ages, the ability to run remote diagnostics and dial into a panel to fix it is limited,” White said. “We have to dispatch engineers more frequently. It's harder to pull reports, but we still do it.”

On-Site Reporting
Some large commercial users, such as chain stores, may have their own security control room. Alarm monitoring can still play a role in alerting on-site personnel about a situation. “On-site control rooms are unique to specific applications,” Sanchez said. “Even in these scenarios remote central stations can act as a ‘hot' backup. If you are using a remote control room, tasks such as responding to an event with an on-site guard are easily assigned and managed within the central station software. Additionally, any routine or nonroutine follow-up can be accomplished from the remote location as the on-site control room is handling the event.”

Duress alarms can be received off-site, then verified by on-site operators, Yap said.

A retailer with multiple stores may use off-site alarm monitoring to alert security personnel, rather than the shop owner. “If an alarm goes off at night, we will call their security desk,” White said. “They will invoke their own security procedures.”

Building Good Solutions
Selecting hardware and software for alarm stations means the solutions have to run reliably around the clock. “Monitoring stations must use the highest-grade equipment due to the 24/7 nature of their operations,” Perlin said. Consumer-grade TV sets will not be able to deal with heat and power surges that will occur during continuous operation. Professional displays should be bright, have sufficient resolution and accept multiple inputs.

Systems should be modular for smoother integration, rather than one-time customizations that are expensive. “The key thing is people should use industry-standard equipment,” Kelly said. “Most products are not built with the interface because manufacturers want their own advantages and don't think about integration until it's an issue.”

Alarm-monitoring software needs to be configurable and scalable. The software cannot present complexity to the operator. “You have to support product that might be very old,” Kelly said. “It might be used for 20 years — we still have twisted-pair technology we support. But to the operator, it has to be seamless.” [NextPage]

Training
As commercial alarm monitoring does more, it increases the learning curve for operators. Large customers with a national presence are moving toward IP, which provides more information. “They can more specifically tie down when an alarm was activated, which tends to be much more descriptive,” White said. “They use it for more than security.”

“With the offering of the ‘added services,' dealers are talking about having problems with training their staff,” Lamont said. “The majority of the problem reportedly is more in terms of retraining the sales staff to better understand a company's new offering, allowing the sales teams to present the services to a customer in an effective manner.”

Continuous learning is required to keep up with new technology. “Operators have to be trained on how to use a new operating system; engineers have to learn how to integrate different hardware platforms and tech support people have to learn a new way of thinking about problems in the field,” Perlin said. “Even the installers might sometimes have to learn an entire new set of hardware to do a simple service call.”

Different management levels will require different amounts of training. “Operator training is not a big deal; the more challenging area is administrator training,” Kelly said. “It's like having a business management system like SAP — you go through a process of the software vendor asking what you want to do.”

Generating Profit
Cutting down on false alarms is a big cost saver for managing infrastructure costs. “Some customers are quite high-risk, such as travel agents or betting offices, where they hold cash,” Kelly said. “They get attacked on a daily basis and need to make sure the system works.”

Another way to recoup investments is through environmental monitoring to save energy on lighting and HVAC. “If a building has no people in it, there is legislation written to reduce lighting and heat,” Kelly said. “Switching those devices off could be a cost saver.”

The right mix of people, processes and technology makes the difference between a good and great alarm-monitoring solution. At the top of the list is connectivity, with redundancy built-in, to make sure no alarm is unanswered. A robust platform prioritizes the most urgent alarms, allowing operators to understand what is happening. Finally, dispatching the right people to respond means a clear process is needed.

In the next article, we explore the residential alarm-monitoring market and its migration toward home automation.

Video Surveillance Potential Maximized When Social and Ethical Issues Are Addressed

Editor / Provider: Submitted by Memoori Business Intelligence | Updated: 9/5/2011 | Article type: Hot Topics

In Europe there has been a steadily growing campaign during the last five years to restrict the use of Video Surveillance in public areas. It has been based on the assumption that it infringes on the privacy and liberties of citizens.

Since the August Riots in major cities in the UK, "Big Brother Watch" has been silent because many of the million plus CCTV cameras in the UK played a pivotal role in bringing about swift justice to the perpetrators; this will act as a strong deterrent to others.

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that nearly 3,300 notifiable offences have been reported so far following the outbreaks of disorder across London, and that 1,875 people have been charged in London alone. The Force had around 20,000 hours of CCTV footage to trawl through and it is expected that this will increase as the investigation progresses. Not even the most die-hard supporter of Video Surveillance lays claim that it will stop terrorist attacks, riots and murder on our streets but it can prevent and mitigate its impact as recent events have proven.

In the UK support for the use of CCTV appeared to be falling off but we now expect a resurgence of interest in how its application can be improved through the latest technology.

Members of the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) have already reported an increase in requests for security as a result of the riots that have affected the country this week. They claim that “CCTV systems, already a popular security measure to assist before, during and after attacks and intrusions, are also becoming an essential tool in the identification of the culprits of this week's violence”.

However we should not ignore the social and ethical challenges facing the surveillance industry; they are real. So it was interesting to read this week that Reading University has unveiled plans to lead a new €5.3m European Union funded research center that will examine the social and ethical challenges the surveillance industry faces.

One of the key areas it will look at is the possibility of integrating video analysis and context information to provide privacy-awareness filtering at the camera end. The cameras would be taught to spot and record only people or events of potential interest to organizations such as the police. It would make it particularly useful when having to examine footage from a large number of cameras during live situations, such as the recent riots.

In the USA, as our soon to be released study,”The Physical Security Business in 2011” shows in the last 3 years there has been a rapid increase in Video Surveillance based on the latest IP Networking technologies.

At this time the major obstacle to its implementation is limited funding but this is being overcome through Public-Private Partnerships funding. In the last 18 months, hundreds of communities have installed Video Surveillance schemes. To ensure that this momentum continues, attention needs to be given to ensure that privacy awareness filtering is provided for. Otherwise this precious high growth application will not reach its zenith.

Zoom Through Traffic With Purpose-Built Solutions

Editor / Provider: by a&s International | Updated: 8/25/2011 | Article type: Infrastructure

In today's urban landscape, automobiles play an indispensable role in transporting people and goods. They also cause a variety of problems, ranging from traffic accidents, congestion, environmental pollution and massive consumption of fossil fuels. These are a few of the issues which are becoming serious global problems and require fundamental solutions.

Traffic-monitoring solutions are designed to identify congestion, as well as increase safety on the roads. More interactive services include real-time messages through signage for drivers. Determining objectives is the first step toward building an effective monitoring solution. a&s looks at selection criteria, as well as whether IP and HD surveillance is ready for widespread deployment.

Resolution is the latest buzz in video surveillance and certainly provides benefits for traffic installations. However, megapixel images require additional bandwidth, storage and processing. Megapixel image sensors are mostly CMOS ones, which need additional illumination that is not always available at night. While the benefits of network cameras will eventually increase adoption, the current status limits where they can be placed.

 Traffic-monitoring solutions are handled on a daily basis by operators and enforcement agencies. They demand results that are sometimes in conflict. While reliability and uptime are clear priorities, other nontechnical issues such as training and ease of use are just as important. Balancing different needs against real-world time and budget constraints requires careful planning. Ultimately, traffic-monitoring deployments can help save lives, time and money and sustain the environment.

Traffic has accompanied the rise of urbanization, as more people vie for limited space on roads. While there are more ways for commuters to reach their desired destination, congestion is a constant factor. Beyond being a nuisance, traffic takes a significant toll financially. In Germany alone, traffic congestion cost US$425 million in lost time and fuel in 2010, according to the ADAC, the German equivalent of the AAA.

Transportation, traffic and congestion in urban areas are a huge cost of doing business. “Almost 1 percent of the GDP for a city or country is the cost of congestion,” said Vinodh Swaminathan, Director of Intelligent Transportation, IBM. “As we talk to transportation CIOs from our annual study, a primary area of focus over the next five years is business intelligence and analytics.” The biggest and fastest growing cities in the world are investing trillions in urban infrastructure, making traffic monitoring a top priority. Cisco Systems estimates the traffic monitoring market will have a CAGR in the low teens to exceed $800 million by 2015, said Dan O'Malley, Senior PM for the Physical Security Business Unit.

In China, large traffic-monitoring networks are being deployed. While the coastal region is more developed, there remains great potential in western China, said Rui Ma, Director of Intelligent Transportation, Hikvision Digital Technology. In Europe, more cities are concentrated now and regulate traffic more in urban areas or business parks. One way to manage vehicular access is with bollard-restricted urban areas, said Koen Hobbelink, Business Development Manager of the Netherlands for Nedap. The market is clearly growing, particularly for incident management. “The business case for video, if you calculate the cost of a major artery being blocked, makes it very cheap to put in a camera,” said Peter de Konink, Product Line Manager for Codecs and Analytics, Siqura (a TKH Group company). “A delay of an hour has a price, and that's quite high.”

DESIGNING TRAFFIC SOLUTIONS
There is no sure-fire way to resolve congestion. A surveillance solution for a downtown intersection will have completely different priorities from a highway, said Alf Chang, Senior Consultant for a&s magazines and a former installer. Cameras are getting smarter with analytics, but form just one part of a total monitoring solution. The agency considering a traffic solution must determine why it is needed in the first place; the benefits it hopes to achieve should be narrowed down. “If you don't do this effectively, don't be surprised if the quality is not there when you need to review the stored images,” said Dave Gorshkov, CEO of Digital Grape. He is also Chair of the CCTV and VCA Technical Standards Working Group for the American Public Transportation Association.

Determining objectives early Traffic monitoring is concerned with congestion, but there are other issues technology can address. “Road safety and physical accessibility are other goals,” said Mark Cartwright, Technical Secretary of the Urban Traffic Management and Control, a UK agency. “The challenge traffic managers have is how to meet a range of conflicting policy goals with the traffic management tools at their disposal.”

Understanding and clearly acknowledging what operators want to accomplish plays a huge role. “You don't want to see people putting up cameras, setting up networks and streaming to the back end because they can,” Swaminathan said. “If they understand the outcomes they want to drive and what types of video data are more important, mediumand long-term goals for operating infrastructure would make more sense to the city.”

[NextPage]

FNINDING A PURPOSE
The most crucial part of project planning is determining the project's purpose. An agency that wants to monitor road conditions may not need crystal-clear images for facial identification or LPR.

Some policies drive trafficmonitoring implementations. For London, its congestion charge started as a policy to deter people from driving. “The charge is enforced using LPR,” Cartwright said. “For cost and liability, London needed to ensure all the entry points to the charging zone are monitored.”

Other citywide policies aim for better living by managing congestion. “Eliminating traffic from specific zones in the city improves livability,” Hobbelink said. “Monitoring and management of restricted vehicle access is, therefore, a hot topic.” Traffic systems are becoming more informative as well. “Throughout the world, we see a shift away from monitoring to proactive traffic management,” Swaminathan said.

“This is driving changes in the information system. You can see the emphasis moving from traditional dependence on front-end equipment, such as cameras, to software and analytics. Operators can use predictive analytics to anticipate a potential incident on a road that is getting increasingly congested. They can then position emergency vehicles on roads, rather than wait and react to an incident.”

IP?
The next stage is to determine what technology is best suited for a particular application. IP video surveillance has tremendous benefits, but before procurement, it is essential to understand what its limitations are. Megapixel cameras offer impressive amounts of detail, but require a supporting cast to function in an outdoor environment. “High resolution is almost not desired; it's seen as a luxury,” Cartwright said.

Nighttime imaging is also an issue, as megapixel cameras require IR illuminators. One illuminator may suffice for one lane of traffic, but not across four lanes. More illumination will help, but overheating may cause the camera to crash. Operators will have to weigh between seeing detail and streaming video. While there are newer cameras that can cover up to two lanes with a single 810-nanometer illuminator, these are highly application-specific.

Extra lighting may simply be unavailable on highways. “With the low-light issues, none of the available megapixel cameras will do,” de Konink said. “Additionally, if you mount a camera on a pole 6 to 12 meters high, there will be wind. You will have to make it a very stable pole, but that is very expensive.”

Dynamic range also remains an issue, giving rise to noisier images and increased bit rates, said Martin Yang, Director of R&D for Sunell Technology. CMOS sensors are getting better at handling more pixels, but still have a way to go before they catch up with CCD low-light performance.

HD is a growing trend for traffic applications, but only for specific locations such as toll stations or entrance ramps. IP is seeing added adoption in traffic, but not every camera on the road should be a megapixel one.

General wide-area monitoring still depends on SD cameras for real-time transmission.

LPR
Traffic-monitoring checkpoints frequently deploy LPR as well. The world electronic toll collection (ETC) systems market is the fastest growing product segment, displaying a CAGR of about 12.77 percent until 2015, according to a Global Industry Analysts study.

For identification, HD is hard to beat. Key places that deploy HD cameras and LPR also use PTZ cameras, said Cheng Yu, PM at ZTE Netview Technology. “In a typical traffic application, a mixture of HD and SD will be deployed to lower the cost.”

However, real-life LPR performance is not 100-percent accurate and takes up significant processing power and bandwidth. For operators, it can be hard to use as well. Some solutions try to free up bandwidth by compressing the image before running LPR algorithms, but the loss of image detail reduces accuracy and defeats deployment purposes. Edge processing will make this better, but changing conditions make LPR easier said than done.

License plates have multiple formats, making it hard to recognize them all. “In India, some plates write the numbers on one line, while others are written on two lines,” said Zaheer Ali, Director of Oriole Electronics. “Some are in plastic or metal; some are not in English but in Hindi. It's very hard to perform character recognition. LPR has never worked in India for the current format.”

MULTIMEGAPIXEL AND BEYOND
Traffic monitoring is a really demanding situation where operators need to be able to identify vehicles, objects or even persons in a scene, said Nafis Jasmani, Sales Manager for ASEAN at Axis Communications.

“This higher resolution enables the operator to choose either to zoom in or to maintain a wider field of view without compromising the ability to see and discover fine details in the image.”

However, escalating megapixel counts need to be weighed against frame rates . “ I f you t ake 20 megapixels and you zoom 10 times after the fact, the camera could look for license plates, faces or through the windshield to faces,” O'Malley said. “However, if you reduce frame rates while cars travel at 160 km/hr to 4 fps or the IR illuminator is shining at the wrong place, no matter how great the lens or camera is, you can't use that data.” Megapixel is useful in specific traffic applications, but is not practical for every camera system-wide.

[NextPage]

SELECTION CRITERIA
While products have their limitations, understanding those limits helps build a practical solution. Hardware and software must perform for years or even decades. “Whatever you install, the system has to be reliable,” Gorshkov said. Agencies must install an appropriate system for their needs, understanding that some equipment, such as hard drives, has short life cycles. “Does the system do the job I want it to do reliably and efficiently? Will it keep doing it for 10 to 20 years? Does it solve problems the camera was intended to help with? People have operational needs, and any system design must meet these needs.”

Another selection criterion is multitasking. “One thing we keep hearing — which is probably a consequence of the economic crisis — is the infrastructure should be simple, efficient and multipurpose,” Swaminathan said. “How do we do more with less?”

INTEGRATION ISSUES
Third-party interoperability was supposed to be a thing of the past, thanks to the rise of IP and standards. The reality remains that joining ONVIF does not solve integration issues, because of private agreements among vendors. This ensures only vendors who have paid up will have support for their unique features. “Proprietary protocols only exist as a favor to suppliers, not to end users,” Hobbelink said.

Other issues are insufficiently open APIs and SDKs from vendors who want to maintain their competitive advantage. Lack of transparency has been a long-term headache, as each company has proprietary interfaces that make data sharing difficult, Yang said. An inability to share translates into a bottleneck for traffic monitoring.

There is no common agreement for overall performance. “PSIA, ONVIF and HDcctv are not standards — they're manufacturer agreements,” Gorshkov said. “They're not for maximized performance; they're just ways to connect boxes without difficulty.”

With so many parts in a traffic solution, scalability and interoperability are essential. “Eventually, cost will be reduced if everyone is sending information with the same media and control path,” O'Malley said.

Government agencies or operators must include contract provisions that require the various vendors and system integrators to open up their interfaces or develop new ones. “It is important for the agency calling for a submission or tender to have a good understanding of the various legacy and new systems that need to be integrated together and also the extent of integration required,” said Richard Ng, Director of Business Development, ST Electronics. This includes integrating existing analog systems with digital ones, as well as managing control interfaces.

Along with cameras and an monitoring requires backup storage as well. Presently storage is done in one of two ways. The first is on-site storage at the roadways, Chang said. The second is node storage, distributing storage throughout the system, similar to private cloud storage. The benefit is scalable storage options that can be placed anywhere, instead of a central location.

Some agencies choose not to record their video at all, opting for live viewing, Gorshkov said. This depends on policies, such as how long footage is retained.

Getting surveillance images stored calls for transmission, with wireless deployments increasing due to their flexibility. “In most cases, there is a dedicated network for cameras, such as along highways. If you go wireless, the story is different,” de Konink said. “In some countries, it's much harder to get wiring alongside the road. If you're in Switzerland, you'd have to go through the mountains. Here in Holland, we don't use wireless at all, except for mobile systems where they do maintenance on the road.”

Advances in Wi-Fi and 4-G technologies have overcome some issues with range, power and data rates. “The key is to balance the operational requirements for high resolution and the availability of bandwidth,” Ng said.

New wireless standards will improve transmission speeds. “Before, it was hard to get 2 Mbps to stream to your cell phone,” O'Malley said. “Now with 4-G, it will get fast. The point here is that video surveillance will be ubiquitous as the public networks get faster.”

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MEASURING ROI
Capital investment upfront is difficult to justify without some sort of ROI. For the US city of Lancaster, a public monitoring system averaged 836 pieces of video information in a month for 2010, resulting in 15 arrests a month on average. Evidence captured on video saves trial costs, which is roughly $20,000 for each case that goes before a jury, according to the district attorney's office. While the system is not strictly for traffic, it has paid for itself several times over. In Sweden , IBM designed and maintained an automated tolling solution, which employed character recognition and RFID. The system automatically taxed vehicles entering the city center between specific times on weekdays, reducing traffic volume by 25 percent during its trial period for an estimated savings of $1.1 billion. Traffic monitoring can be worth the investment, if carefully designed and implemented.

Traffic monitoring requires thorough planning and carefully considering technical factors. Copying another project's specs without considering site factors will result in missing red-light violations or procuring cameras that cannot perform LPR. Hardware and software considerations come after planning, as users need to take vendor claims with a grain of salt. In the following article, we examine what a traffic-monitoring installation must deliver for effective management and enforcement

How to Enter the UK Security Market

Editor / Provider: Submitted by Digital Grape | Updated: 8/25/2011 | Article type: Hot Topics

The UK market is vast, but how does a new company break into it? Consultant Dave Gorshkov, CEO of Digital Grape, identifies market opportunities and important considerations for navigating the British market.

The U.K. is the largest market for video surveillance. At least 20 percent of the world's video surveillance systems are deployed in the U.K., which has an estimated 4.3 million cameras spread throughout the nation. This is expected to swell to 9 million units in the next five to 10 years, according to the British Security Industry Association.

The demand for video surveillance and analytics is strong. Sobering reminders of why the market has grown in the past 10 years include the Madrid train bombing, the London July 7 train bombing, the Mumbai attacks and the recent attempted car bomb in Times Square. The common link between those incidents was video surveillance was used to determine who had perpetrated the incidents and how they could be prevented going forward.

The reason why the U.K. has the biggest market share compared to other countries is its relatively high terrorism risk. While the U.S. has 50 states, it also has 50 sets of regulations on privacy.

Other countries in Europe have heavy privacy rules, such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain, which is why video surveillance uptake has been significantly smaller. In the U.K., where a bomb was defused in Dublin, Ireland, as recently as May, the country has faced the threat of terrorism for many years. That is a reason why the country has pioneered many video surveillance technologies, such as LPR, which was invented by the UK Home Office.

Other areas in security are also strong. Access control makes up 25 percent of systems, representing a major area of opportunity.

Growth Verticals
The public sector sees strong demand for video surveillance applications in traffic monitoring and transportation. Those applications still buy analog in large numbers for legacy systems. Transport systems use fiber to bring back video.

The overall UK market is worth US$6 billion a year and more of that is IP-based. IP is creeping in slowly, as it offers more flexibility.

To ease congestion, road tolling legislation is a key area. London is currently the only city with a congestion charge of 10 pounds, or $16, to enter. Its LPR toll system makes a profit of $200 million a year. More cities such as Manchester want to install similar systems, presenting opportunities in traffic monitoring.

The Association of Train Operating Companies governs surface and underground rail services in the U.K. Its 26 members are also responsible for public buses. All rail networks carry video surveillance, with 2,500 stations in the U.K. Most of those have video surveillance onboard. Metro stations are different; the London Underground typically has 15 to 16 cameras per platform, compared to two or three cameras for rail train stations. There are many opportunities in the surface and underground rail markets.

Tunnel Vision
In roadways, tunnel protection is seeing more demand. Preventing people from entering tunnels reduces risks, such as planted explosives or accidents caused by individuals who seek shelter in the tunnels. As tunnel delays are costly, more end users are keen to deploy analytics to keep people out of tunnels. Some 3-D analytics used with stereoscopic cameras can help protect road or rail tunnels. If a train or car enters the tunnel, 3-D video analysis can check if a person went in with the train or vehicle. This is more accurate than 2-D video analytics.

Other public verticals with strong security demand are seaports and prisons.

Private Sector
For retail in the U.K., video surveillance is an essential part of any installation. Warehousing logistics is an essential part of security for stock or shrinkage. UK theft is worth $6.5 billion in service and support. It is important to bear in mind a camera is worth a couple hundred dollars; installing the camera is where the mother lode of cost is.

Health care is another major vertical, with more than 250 hospitals governed by the National Health Service. One application-specific need is infant monitoring for maternity or young baby units, which are installing more cameras to ensure babies are not taken by unauthorized persons.

Education is also seeing more uptake. Schools continue to face bomb threats and violence, with more cameras put in to watch over students, staff and premises. 

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Large Ev ents Drive Market Demand
The U.K. will play host to a number large events, presenting excellent opportunities for safety and security. London will welcome countless visitors for the 2012 Olympic Games, with other sites also requiring added security. A good amount of the security budget is going toward camera technology, which will easily be worth billions of pounds.

Other sporting events include the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which is the second largest event after the Olympics. In 2015, the Rugby World Cup will take place in the U.K. As the country's sporting venues will be crowded, the U.K. has good opportunities for security players.

Passing UK Certification
The Home Office Scientific Development Board is responsible for advising all police agencies. All installers will need to be certified by their local constabulary or police agency to get an approval.

The Home Office issues guidelines on how and what to install. The guidelines indicate what has to be done for legal reasons, such as data protection.

Operators of alarm centers must meet British standards, similar to standards from the American National Standards Institute. These mandates require operators to carry out certain functions or react at certain times in the event of an alarm.

Developing Effective Channel Partnerships
For manufacturers eager to enter the UK market, channel partners and distributors should be selected with care. The first thing is to make sure the product is complementary to the distributor's capabilities. Many times, channel partners will take a product and not distribute it. The only time they distribute is if customers ask for it, like a travel agent.

Manufacturers need to understand if there is an opportunity for their products. If the product contains “secret sauce” or requires significant training, such as video analytics, a manufacturer might want to consider the cost involved. Some providers may decide to do the training themselves or with a partner. They may also opt for a good system integrator to work with, instead of a distributor.

Along with finding reliable system integrators and distributors, a manufacturer can choose to also have a local representative on the ground. This can be set up quickly, as the U.K. does not require legal residence, company ownership or a British passport. At least 80 percent of the ICT companies in the U.K. are foreignowned. Having a virtual office will give a manufacturer a local presence. That can be a comfort to potential clients to know about a provider's commitment in the U.K. and their support for their product or system.

On the other hand, manufacturers may want to make that commitment more substantial with a full-blown subsidiary. Setting up a company in the U.K. is a fairly straightforward process. Companies can decide where is the best place for them to be, based on their target audience and where potential hires are. While most international companies look at London or Cambridge, other opportunities are scattered throughout the British isles.

Hiring a local manager is not cheap in the U.K. or in Europe, which has 35-hour work weeks. Foreign providers need to know when they will generate revenue before investing in the market. These are important considerations, as the U.K. is the No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment in Europe and second in the world only to the U.S.

Serious foreign manufacturers need a market strategy and revenue targets that are realistic. With good planning and a clear identification of market needs, the UK market provides excellent opportunities to competent companies.

Facial Recognition Software Being Used to Catch UK rioters

Editor / Provider: Wavestore | Updated: 8/17/2011 | Article type: Residential & Consumer

Scotland Yard are using the latest facial recognition technology which was being considered for the 2012 Olympic Games to help them catch those involved in the riots on London's streets. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that officers are feeding photographs of suspects through Scotland Yard's newly updated face-matching program.

The official said that the Metropolitan Police's facial recognition software was being used to help find those suspected of being involved in the worst unrest the force has faced in a generation. On the condition of anonymity he said: "A lot of tools are being used to hunt down these criminals, and that's just one of them. The issue is that you have to have a good picture of a suspect and it is only useful if you have something to match it against. In other words, the suspect already has to have a previous criminal record."

To that end the police have released two dozen photos and videos to the picture-sharing website Flickr, where they have already gathered more than 400,000 hits. Some of those photographs have also been published by Britain's tabloid press. The photographs on Flickr are mainly grainy images pulled from closed circuit television cameras, which may not be of much use to face-matching software. But pictures taken by police surveillance teams, published in the media or snapped by passers-by could provide higher-resolution images.

Chubb Security System On Sale at U.K. Shopping Center

Editor / Provider: Chubb | Updated: 5/31/2011 | Article type: Commercial Markets

Chubb has been chosen by the developers of Westfield Stratford City, the gateway to the Olympic Park, to provide fire and security systems for what will be the largest urban shopping center in Europe. Chubb is part of UTC Fire & Security, a unit of United Technologies.


Chubb drew on the capabilities of the entire UTC Fire & Security group to secure contracts that will include more than 1000 alarm points, 300 access control readers, 750 network video cameras together with sprinkler systems.


The security project is led by Chubb, with the support of UTC Fire & Security company Lenel, experts in access control and integrated security solutions. Hall & Kay, also part of UTC Fire & Security, will be providing fire-fighting equipment and sprinkler systems. Otis Elevator Company, another United Technologies unit, has also secured a contract for the center.


Westfield Stratford City and London’s Olympic Park together span 700 acres and account for one of the largest urban regeneration projects ever undertaken in the U.K. Housing more than 300 retail units and covering more than 1.9 million square feet of retail and leisure space, Westfield Stratford City will also include multiple mixed-use facilities including a cinema, hotels, offices and homes.


"The UTC Fire & Security businesses leveraged existing customer relationships as part of its 2012 Olympic Project strategy to secure the contract," said Paul Winnowski, President of UTC Fire & Security’s United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa (UKISA) business: "It is the combination of expertise that gives Chubb its strength."


"We have a value proposition that we can bring to the table and are creating a cross business unit collaboration blueprint for the future, a new template where the sum of our strengths enables us to demonstrate commercial and operational advantages that have broad appeal, especially for major customers such as Westfield."

Network Connections Build Safety in Growing Cities

Editor / Provider: Submitted by Cisco Systems | Updated: 5/26/2011 | Article type: Hot Topics

As more people move to cities, the need to protect citizens increases. Dennis Charlebois, Director of Safety and Security Solutions at Cisco Systems, discusses how smart networked communities can ensure the safety of people and assets.

Today, every community in the world faces ever-increasing threats of natural calamities and man-made disasters. No one is immune and far too often these threats lead to unpredictable and tragic events with catastrophic impact on our lives, property and sense of well-being.

Recent examples include the Mumbai terrorist attack, Hurricane Katrina, the 7/7 London bombing, 9/11, the San Diego fires, the Virginia Tech shooting, the Haiti earthquake and more. These events cause ripple effects in communities all over the world, and they shine a bright light on shortcomings of effectively dealing with these events. A terrorist event in Mumbai, India could affect the daily lives of people in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Dennis Charlebois

A shooting on the campus of a local university takes more than four hours to neutralize, resulting in innocent people being killed or wounded in the process. Understanding how this is possible is essential. More importantly, communities must consider what they can do to ensure their citizens, employees and assets are safe and secure.

According to several sources, approximately 500 million people will be added to the world's cities over the next five years. By 2050, 100 new cities will each beinhabited by more than a million residents. With world populations shifting tourbanareas , community leaders face challenges of overcrowding, pollution and budget resource constraints. They need to create safe, efficient environments to attract businesses and compete in global markets. This demands better use of resources, stronger infrastructures and better living standards.

Smart Cities
With the pervasiveness of network connections and the increasing intelligence of the network as an application platform, communities are looking to build their infrastructures to support integration and interoperability of anything connected to the network, essentially forming a smarter city. These Smart and Connected Communities provide a forward-looking blueprint leveraging network infrastructure to achieve greater levels of social, economic and environmental sustainability.

1. Social sustainability:
The services provided on the network enable citizens to enhance their quality of life and increase their standard of living by creating a healthy and interactive environment.
2. Economic sustainability:
Smart and Connected Communities facilitate new job opportunities for citizens. As new businesses and key industries flourish, they help drive economic growth.
3. Environmental sustainability:
Smart and Connected Communities help reduce the environmental impact caused over the years due to the improper management of resources.

Part of the promise of Smart and Connected Communities includes next-generation approaches to delivering health care, education, energy management, transportation, and safety and security. The interoperability enabled by the network breaks new ground on how communities collect and use information.

For safety and security, this means the network enables better detection of events, better assessment and situational analysis. Response scenarios can be more collaborative and ultimately more effective at protecting lives and mitigating damage. Cisco is working with city governments, police and fire departments in the cities such as Holyoke, Massachusetts; Incheon and Busan in Korea; Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam; and Lavasa City, India. For each location, urban agencies aim to provide a broad range of technologies, including integrated video surveillance, access control, incident dispatch, radio interoperability, mass notification, digital media display and other solution elements to support the effective detection of events and deployment of first-responder services.
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Infrastructure
An architectural approach to safety and security begins with the network. Use cases will determine what technologies need to connect, but the underlying network infrastructure should always remain consistent. Network design should be borderless so that the user experience is transparent, whether they are tethered to a workstation in a security operations center (SOC), moving in a vehicle or roving around a city campus.

That infrastructure should ensure secure and reliable communications. It should also provide a level of scalability that accommodates growth as the community expands. That infrastructure should be shared so that community services are enhanced and cost-reduced. In essence, the network enables technologies to peacefully interact, not just as a path for data, but as a platform for interoperability.

Consider the devices as IP end points. In safety and security, end points are typically network cameras, access control readers, alarm input devices, digital and analog radios, displays or GPS sensors. End points that conform to industry standards will help with initial interoperability and ensure the integrity of the solution remains validated throughout the solution life cycle. Without standards, updates of individual solution elements can wreak havoc on the integrity of the overall system. Standards such as ONVIF or PSIA are useful for devices, but standards by which applications share data are conspicuously absent.

Ideally, the network can act as an intelligent fabric between devices that deliver information to the network and the user interfaces that pull information off the network. The more intelligent the network, the less work needs to be done by the end points and the applications. Imagine the network containing a broad set of services above and beyond those today. If they were used by manufacturers, they would obviate the need to build heavyweight applications or end points. Scheduling, messaging, secure transport, analytics, transcoding and more could become part of the network. This would drive down the cost and maintainability of the applications and end points, enabling overall system intelligence to exist in the network. The result is faster innovation, more affordable products and richer content for consumers of information. An example where this works is with medianet.

A medianet architecture is a way to help customers build a scalable, reliable and cost-efficient infrastructure. Consider video surveillance, which can be particularly demanding on a network. HD cameras running 24/7 can consume significant bandwidth. A medianet approach adds a layer of intelligence to the network, the end points, the servers and potentially all applications. This enables the network to effectively manage requests for bandwidth based on availability and dynamic conditions. The significance of this is the cameras can be automatically configured on the network, reducing the time needed to configure cameras once they are plugged into Ethernet switches.

Designing Stable Networks
The network itself can present a challenge for many customers. Far too often the network is considered ubiquitous and its inability to support additional network traffic is overlooked.

Video is frequently the culprit when networks become oversubscribed, so a great way to start is with a video surveillance readiness assessment. This assessment helps customers properly plan and migrate to video technologies and applications, as well as networked safety and security solutions. It also ensures the technologies selected can be installed with the least amount of disruption.

This creates a win-win-win situation for the system integrator, the equipment manufacturers and the end user. The system integrators win because they have an opportunity to add value and differentiate by offering this assessment as a service. Manufacturers win because they are less likely to be dragged into customer support situations that are not product-related. The end users win because they are able to know up-front if their infrastructure can support the traffic; if not, they can properly plan to upgrade the network elements so their deployments are trouble free.

IP App lications
With increased levels of interoperability, application developers can build more compelling user-facing applications. They can have richer content and provide better information for efficient and effective decisions. Physical security information management is a good example where, through integration, end users can visualize situations consolidating data from multiple sources, correlating that data and adding layers of business intelligence. Qualified system integrators are able to offer better solutions with more value.

So with all this interoperability and seamless data flow, what are some of the examples on how communities might benefit? One example might be a city subway station, where a camera containing video analytics monitors the platform area with virtual trip wires to detect people intentionally or unintentionally wandering into restricted areas. If a person crosses the virtual boundary, an alert is created and sent to the SOC. Automatically, cameras can be positioned to zoom in on the GIS coordinates detected by the trip wire.

Video from critical cameras are given priority in the network so that operators can accelerate resolution and frame rate. Simultaneously, the system may lock down certain doors or gates to prevent unauthorized entry to sensitive areas.

Transit police can be dispatched with a description of the alert, as well as receive snapshots and video clips of the person activating the trip wire. Radio-cellular phone-IP phone communications are patched together to help responders. Should operators determine that the suspect is a known threat, evacuation instructions can be sent to platform digital displays.

Today, city authorities are looking at how to do more with less: to effectively coordinate and deliver services to their communities and give citizens better access to those services. Providing a safe and secure environment is the foundation for these communities to be successful. Thus, the network is critical for enabling communities to create this environment.

AMG Transmits Surveillance Data through UK Tunnel

Editor / Provider: AMG Systems | Updated: 5/24/2011 | Article type: Infrastructure

AMG Systems has been selected to supply the transmission solution for the refurbished Victorian-built Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames in London.

Following a series of tunnel fires in the European Alps in 2000, the European safety regulations for tunnels were changed and Transport for London (TfL) announced a US$112 million refurbishment programme over three years of the northbound Blackwall Tunnel. P. Ducker Systems (PDS) is undertaking the task of supplying the tunnel systems for the project.

“The Blackwall Tunnel is a main traffic artery connecting Blackwall Point in East Greenwich and East India Dock Road in Poplar. Originally it was built to transport horse-drawn carriages under the river, but today more than 50,000 vehicles use the tunnel every day,” said Mike Rose, Business Development Manager at PDS. “There are two tunnel bores– each, carrying traffic in two lanes. The Northbound Tunnel, which we're currently working on, is 1.4-kilometer long. The new tunnel systems cover new fire and incident detection and a new surveillance camera system. The transmission solution will be supplied by AMG Systems. We will implement transmission solution for video and associated data and alarms over single-mode fiber. The solution covers 64 cameras mounted throughout the tunnel bore.”

It is always difficult to work in an environment which is so heavily in use as the Blackwall Tunnel. In order to minimize disruption to the road users all the work is conducted at night between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. where the tunnel is closed. Work is currently ahead of schedule and TfL is expecting that the work will be completed before the end of 2011 a year ahead of schedule.

DVTel Video Management Provides Cure to UK Health Care Institution

Editor / Provider: DVTel | Updated: 5/23/2011 | Article type: Commercial Markets

DVTel, a supplier for smart security solutions for video surveillance, announced that the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), London, U.K., has selected DVTel from among eight video management software providers as the central platform for a newly-upgraded IP video management system.

The DVTel solution will manage data from more than 160 network, HD and analog cameras, covering the entire hospital complex and monitored from a central command video wall, along with workstations throughout the hospital, and possibly in the future from portable devices such as an iPad. Check Your Security (CYS) performed a surveillance audit at the hospital prior to the project going to tender and was then eventually selected as the integrator for this project.

Since its founding in 1852, GOSH has been dedicated to children's health care. Each year, there are more than 170,000 patient visits to the hospital. GOSH is at the forefront of pediatric care and nurse and doctor training in the U.K. For such a venerable, visible institution, the choice and installation of a security system to protect patients and staff was extremely important.

The hospital approached CYS in 2010 seeking to upgrade their disparate analog video surveillance systems. As a starting point, CYS recommended their enterprise audit service. The audit evaluated every piece of security and network equipment to provide a comprehensive picture of what was in place, technology capabilities, legacy equipment to be utilized in a future solution, and a list of hardware and software options to meet their current security goals