The campus of 2020 was shown to the audience at the IIPSEC conference on January 22.
Nathan Prisk, head of IT at University College Falmouth, spoke of the Cornish educational site’s use of its network for voice over IP telephony, and security such as CCTV and access control. First, to lighten the day, he devoted as a Cornishman a couple of minutes to the history of the Cornish pasty (‘designed as a medium to transport certain food from the hand to the mouth within getting dirt on the food – as used by Cornish miners). Getting to business; the Falmouth campus is part of CUC – Combined Universities in Cornwall, whereby shared resources mean cost savings. In 2003 Falmouth began planning for telephony over VOIP. Falmouth was a new campus, and student residences for more than 500 rooms. But, IT had to make savings over existing systems. And building management systems were added to the network later.
As Nathan Prisk admitted: ‘I am not a security guy; never involved with CCTV. I do computers. It’s a bit of a step to the left, if you like.’ He was looking for a completely converged service, running over the network. An IT team of three would manage anything; hence Nathan Prisk stressed that a solution had to be easy to manage, or else you faced having to have extra IT staff.
Installed at Falmouth have been a mix of external pan and tilt cameras, and internal fixed cameras, some with ‘confidence monitors’ fitted alongside. And door access is by PIN cards. The system uses an analogue to IP converter. Questions included; how do you control the camera itself? How do you change pre-sets? Very difficult, he replied, and at the time he did not have security guards, so every decision Nathan Prisk made was with IT rather than security reasons. What if, for example, as happened at Falmouth, some outdoor CCTV cameras do not prove to be weather-proof? As the same IT people running the backbone of the CCTV had to run the network telephony, it had to be easy to manage, he stressed, and IT had to reduce the amount of wiring. As Nathan Prisk said, it was no good building the new campus and then having to tear it down to add more cabling. And a system had to be resilient; because without the network infrastructure, nothing works on the campus. If yours is a long-term project, he added, make sure that the company whose products you use are right for you, and that the manufacturer does not stop developing the product you have invested in. Nor should you underestimate the training necessary for staff to use the products; people leave and joiners have to be trained. Nor should you install for the sake of it; for example, he admitted that at Falmouth there were installed cameras in stairwells never used, and readers on doors not used.
Finally, Nathan Prisk warned that builders and IT do not mix. Initially, he admitted, he was focused on the external threat, ‘but there is more than one way into our network,’ he added. There are some 3000 users inside the network, on PCs and laptops, who may be downloading music illegally. How then to maintain security, and flexibility? he asked.
He is now looking to replace some old CCTV, and looking to replace the access cards with RFID over WiFi.
