Page 24 - Security Today, March 2018

Archiving Security
When moving to a new headquarters four times larger, the School of Information and Communication of the University of the Republic of Uruguay in Montevideo needed to implement a video surveillance system that provides high quality, reliability and accessibility BTy Courtney Dillon Pedersen
he University wanted to imple- ment a robust VMS with good video storage capacity that included alarms and notifica- tions for motion detection or
perimeter crossings in order to control po- tential external and, most importantly, inter- nal theft. It was essential to integrate the sys- tem into an existing network infrastructure to meet the established budget that did not include new coaxial cable installations.
The Existing Infrastructure
The school and security integrator decided on Milestone Systems XProtect Professional VMS software plus cameras from Digital Watchdog DWC-PB2M4TIR and Vivotek IP9181-H.
School security staff wanted a versatile and easy to install in a virtual computerized system. It does not require dedicated equip- ment (standard IT hardware works fine) and the interfaces and access levels allow the user to easily implement an optimal monitor- ing center. The alarm panel provides quick identification of events and sends night-time alerts via SMS to the mobile number desig- nated for each shift.
The administration of the system is sim- ple and it comes with XProtect Smart Client, a display interface that works in desktops or Milestone Mobile that manages video from smartphones and tablets. Milestone allows the integration of cameras from a very wide range of manufacturers and offers a com- plete metric analysis.
Early in 2017, the School of Information and Communication (FIC) was inaugurated at the University of the Republic of Uruguay (Udelar). The university’s website announced that the new headquarters aimed to strength- en the core mission of the school created in 2013. It regained a large space that went un- used for decades and part of the senior liv- ing facility, Asáma Dámaso Antonio. It is a structure of 8,500 square meters and four floors that house nearly 4,000 students, 200 teachers and 80 administrative and logistics staff on a daily basis.
Inside the Building
In addition to classrooms and administra- tive offices, there is a large and modern li- brary, audio and video recording rooms
and an advanced television studio. With the presence of such modern technologi- cal investments in the property, the concern about theft and damage increased, due to the high traffic of faculty, students and visi- tors that could access the control and moni- toring of the equipment and devices.
“The new headquarters greatly increased the vulnerability points for security,” said Yonathan Benelli, IT manager at Udelar. “Without a system like the one now imple- mented, it would be unfeasible to maintain an acceptable level of security.”
Benelli adds that despite the need for a professional video surveillance system for the educational institution, “It was unthink- able to carry out a CCTV installation with
coaxial cabling due to its high cost. There- fore, the installation of the Milestone IP vid- eo management system within the existing IT network infrastructure versus performing a coaxial interconnection resulted in a very significant cost reduction.”
The savings were not only in technology acquisition, but also in hardware and human resources.
“We estimate that without this system, we would have needed at least four added employ- ees dedicated to surveillance. Also, we took advantage of existing hardware to implement virtualization,” Benelli said.
A Custom-made Solution
Foxsys, the company managing the technol-
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