IP at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The campus has seen rapid expansion with extensive building during the 1960s, 80s and over the last ten years but the original core of the campus remains. Management of the 320 acre estate and over 100 campus buildings is the responsibility of the university’s Estates department, which employs around 100 staff. The Estates department’s core functions are maintaining the physical fabric of the campus, managing the grounds and also campus security.
When the campus was originally founded in the 1960s, campus security was the responsibility of the university’s sixty porters who were the ‘eyes and ears’ of the campus, and ensured that doors were locked, windows were closed and the campus was secure. In the 1980s the numbers of porters were reduced but many were retained as security officers.
During the late 1980s the university began to install CCTV cameras, mainly as a response to an increase in car crime in car parks around the campus. Screens displaying live CCTV images were installed in the main reception area for monitoring by the front desk team and to act as a deterrent to would-be trouble makers. New CCTV cameras were added as a crime prevention measure, which produced a scattergun approach to camera installation. As small groups of cameras were added a new dedicated monitoring screen was also purchased and installed in a number of different monitoring locations within the campus rather than in a central control room. There was also no clear policy on the type of cameras being bought. Different CCTV systems were therefore installed in each new building campus-wide. Each remained stand-alone, often using differing proprietary standards for communication with cameras. Because of this method of procurement, interoperability between groups of cameras was a near impossibility. Monitoring jobs such as tracking people moving across the campus became time- consuming and complex and was riddled with failure points.
During the mid-1990s, a central control room was established and all of the individual systems were connected into it. Monitoring of the screens was now the responsibility of the security officers, rather than the receptionists. The control room was packed full of equipment, including multiplexers, a bank of video recorders and two walls of monitors totalling 30 screens. Each screen showed the output from four CCTV cameras. The control room required extensive air conditioning to reduce the heat generated by all this equipment. Despite this, on a hot summer’s day temperatures in the control room could exceed 40 degrees Celsius. When the heat became too much, not only did the security staff not want to work in the room, but the equipment would start to fail as it overheated.
Defining requirements
In 2003, the UEA appointed Mike McCormack as Campus Services Manager with overall responsibility for security throughout the campus. Looking at the existing CCTV infrastructure, McCormack quickly recognised that the system was not delivering to standards expected of 21st century surveillance.
If an incident did occur on campus and the police requested images, the security team would have to spend hours examining video footage to try and locate the required images and piece them together from different VHS tapes. There was no consistency in the type of CCTV camera deployed across the campus which was a mix of black and white and colour. On several occasions, the security team could not supply the police with the images they requested. Managing the bank of video recorders was problematic; the tapes had to be changed every 12 hours and typically would not be changed at the right time so vital images would be erased and those that were there were difficult to locate. Tapes were held in 30 day rotation racks and there were so many of these they dominated one large wall in the central control room. Also, with the tapes being used over and over again, the image quality degraded and tapes even broke.
McCormack initiated a complete review of security management within his first month in the new job. This review encompassed the CCTV system and articulated the need for a long–term security strategy for the future. He recognised that there had not been a video surveillance strategy in place before and for the previous five years a great many cameras had been installed across the campus in an ad-hoc way. The UEA was battling with a myriad of proprietary camera systems and if a camera went wrong the university had to go back to the original manufacturer to see if they still supplied parts or whether the camera had become obsolete.
McCormack discovered that the building contractors had been in charge of specifying the type of camera systems being installed in new UEA buildings. But because the installation of the CCTV systems tended to be considered only as an after-thought once the building was completed, cheap and ineffective systems tended to be deployed.
At the same time the university was starting to identify how it could integrate a range of IT systems together across a new campus-wide, high specification fibre optic network. As part of this planning work a buildings access control system was integrated with vehicular access control at road entrances to the site. McCormack recognised that the existing analogue CCTV system had major limitations and also saw an opportunity to centralise and consolidate the surveillance system through the use of the central fibre IP (Internet Protocol), thereby opening the system up to wider integration with access control and other relevant applications in the future.
Trevor Smith, Customer Account Manager at UEA has responsibility for helping colleagues to find and establish working partnerships with suppliers. He was also assigned to task of managing surveillance improvements for the university. McCormack and Smith started to investigate suppliers who they could work with to get advice and to define the surveillance strategy. In early 2005 more budget was allocated for new security cameras and a decision needed to be made whether this was the time to migrate systems from analogue-based CCTV to IP-Surveillance.
Smith highlighted the issues they were grappling with: "We already had 90 analogue CCTV cameras and could not afford to scrap all of these and replace them with new network cameras. Because of this we thought we might have to run the old analogue system separately from the new IP-Surveillance system. I approached one of UEA’s existing security suppliers to explore the issues – the supplier did not even suggest investigating network video and recommended staying with an analogue CCTV system."
Smith consulted the UEA’s in-house IT department for their views on analogue and IP-Surveillance. They recommended adopting IP-Surveillance, especially as the university had an excellent IT infrastructure in place which could easily support the transmission and storage of video images from network cameras. The IT department was so happy with the idea that they agreed to take over any hardware maintenance and firmware upgrading of new network cameras, freeing-up some additional budget for the Estates department which had set aside a specific maintenance budget to support the security system.
Identifying an appropriate installation partner
The task then turned to finding an installer that had experience in IP-Surveillance, who could lead the installation and help integrate the cameras into the university’s network. The university wanted to use a local supplier with a clear focus on offering high quality customer service. Smith contacted several security system installers across the east of England including a company called Check Your Security based in West Somerton, close to the Norfolk coast and about 10 miles north of Great Yarmouth.
Check Your Security (CYS) has a specialist team which covers a range of disciplines including analogue and IP security system installation, networking, telecommunications and software. CYS has a strong track record in integrating existing CCTV systems into future-proofed IP-Surveillance systems. CYS works with any legacy system, whether it is IP or analogue CCTV, video encoders, transmitting over copper, coaxial or fibre optic cabling. The company was founded by Carl Pace, who is the managing director.
Pace previously worked for Microsoft where he developed an interest in integrating IP-based security systems. Pace pursued this interest further by working with a large UK-based security company which focused on traditional CCTV security installations, which he could see was reluctant to investigate the opportunities presented by IP-Surveillance. Frustrated at this company’s lack of foresight, Pace broke away to set up Check Your Security to explore the enormous potential of IP-Surveillance in 2005.
CYS is an Axis partner and also works closely with distributor ADI-Gardiner, who in 2004 opened a new division dedicated to selling IP-products and launched a new partner network programme called Network Video Integration Partner (NVIP). The aim of the NVIP programme was to find, train and support specialist installers to offer the largest range of IP and digital technology covering CCTV, access control, environmental and building management systems.
The programme is designed to help end-users gain the reassurance that the partner company is technically proficient, trained to manufacturers’ standards, and also understands networks (LAN, WAN, Wireless etc). CYS joined the programme in 2005 and experienced 200pc year-on-year growth and became ADI-Gardiner’s NVIP ‘Partner of the Year’ in 2007 in recognition of their achievements with installations at a number of leading companies in East Anglia.
When Smith met CYS for the first time in 2005, Pace recommended carrying out an enterprise-wide audit report of the UEA’s existing surveillance system to determine what was working, what required re-configuring or maintenance work and what was in too poor a state to keep. Carl’s initial assessment was that the security team were handicapped by the equipment currently in place and could be made a lot more effective with the installation of a digital surveillance system. Pace and the UEA were also very concerned about the control room, as it was not fit for purpose due to the excessive heat, unreliable equipment and its inability to produce the necessary recorded images for investigating incidents.
Trial and roll out
Pace recommended conducting a trial of network cameras at one of the campus’ car parks, attaching network cameras to a car park barrier area with the addition of an intercom. Using a PC connected in a security officer’s lodge, the UEA security team could see the quality of the images produced by the camera. This trial addressed all of the image quality issues as it was producing better pictures than their existing analogue cameras. Images could then be fed through Milestone XProtect Enterprise video management software which made it simple to view, handle and record images, allowing shots of the driver and the car to be easily matched. McCormack and Smith saw the potential of the system and were convinced to go further with IP-Surveillance.
The UEA decided to embark on an ambitious project to upgrade their existing analogue CCTV system to IP-Surveillance, install new network cameras to provide surveillance to outdoor areas on the campus and to completely revamp the control room to install a video management system that can capture and distribute images of incidents that happen on campus. McCormack, Smith and the senior management team at the university made a strategic decision to choose an open IP-based platform that would take advantage of UEA’s extensive fibre network infrastructure and be future-proofed from an upgrading and integration with other systems perspective. The university commissioned Check Your Security to manage what was to become an initial eight month project.
Outdoor camera coverage was one of the areas identified as in need of improvement. The UEA had previously been reluctant to significantly invest in new analogue cameras due to the expense of the installation. Key areas that required camera coverage were ‘The Street’ with banks and shops and ‘The Square’ which is the campus’ central outdoor meeting place. Cameras were to be used to reassure students when walking from their halls of residence to the campus which, in some areas, meant providing coverage in open parkland.
Getting technical
CYS operates on a ‘best of breed’ approach with regards to all of the equipment it installs. Pace knew that Axis network dome cameras are ideal for providing surveillance in large open spaces. He specified 30 AXIS 232D and AXIS 233D Network Dome cameras. The AXIS 233D offers 35x optical zoom and is suitable the firm says for surveillance in open areas with the ability to quickly focus on specific detail. For the university’s existing 90 analogue cameras, CYS installed 23 AXIS 243Q, and 243SA four and single channel video encoders. The encoders are used to digitise video signals from UEA’s existing analogue cameras. The AXIS 243Q can deliver simultaneous Motion JPEG and MPEG-4 video streams plus video motion detection. The encoders can also be used to control PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) and dome functionality on a wide range of analogue cameras.
The control room was transformed. The bank of video recorders and multiplexers were replaced with a small rack of Axis encoders, three workstations two of which with three 24-inch monitors and a manageable number of LCD wall- mounted screens. CYS installed Milestone’s Enterprise video management system. In terms of storage the university uses three HP servers each configured with 16 Terabyte capacity. Because these servers have flexible direct attached storage, scaling storage requirements to whatever size UEA requires both now and in the future is relatively simple. These servers have flexible attached storage that can grow to very large capacity of 80 Terabytes each; there is also no limit to the amount of servers that can be used giving the university a truly scalable solution that can grow to many hundreds if not thousands of cameras.
Response to incidents
Mike McCormack, campus services manager, UEA, said: "Using IP-Surveillance has provided us with a major increase in the effectiveness of my 28-strong manned guarding team. We fully use the functionality of our IP-Surveillance system, with features such as motion detection, zoning and tripwire to trigger alarms only when individuals enter restricted areas for example. As any security manager knows, video footage is ideal to ascertain the movement and actions of an individual, but a good still picture is crucial for identification, and this is what our IP-Surveillance system now delivers. The clarity of the images is excellent, and with Milestone’s software and Axis’ network cameras and encoders we can quickly hone in on the images we need to send to our teams, or to the police, via email or on a DVD disc.
"Instead of my guards sitting and viewing screens all day, looking for suspicious behaviour, the new system does this for them. Using motion detection and other triggers we focus on checking event exceptions. If we want to investigate more then we simply look back at the recorded footage. This means that more of my security staff can be out on patrol and targeting the areas where these incidents occur."
System for expansion
Because the IP-Surveillance system is based on an open IP platform, adding additional cameras is not an issue – this scalability was one of the key attractions for the UEA. The UEA is now also looking to replace its existing analogue cameras with new network cameras.
Carl Pace, managing director, Check Your Security, said: "The system is now scalable from both a hardware, software and storage perspective. The system now in place is in essence limitless, capable of growing to thousands of cameras across multiple sites using multiple servers, whilst having the ability to be integrated with the campus’ access control and ANPR systems if necessary. With this implementation of Milestone, the UEA has one of the most flexible network video implementations available in the world today.
"Being an open IP system means that we can suggest best of breed equipment for our customers. For instance, the Milestone video management system can work with over 300 different cameras and other devices. In our opinion Axis offers best-of-breed network cameras because of their picture quality, proven track record and innovation in the marketplace."
For Check Your Security, this eight month project with the UEA now forms phase one of a longer term partnership, as the UEA continues to expand its systems further. Further building projects include the construction of a new halls of residence for 700 students and new teaching facilities to support ‘INTO’ – the UEA’s programme for overseas college students, as well as new academic buildings, extensions to the university’s sports park and the construction of a biomass power plant.
Integration with IP
The UEA is continuing to investigate ways of integrating more systems onto the IP backbone of the campus. Access control is a major issue for the campus, with 42,000 staff, students and alumni members and other universities and colleges allowed access into the campus buildings. Everyone who is eligible to be on campus has an access card for the Cardax access control system. This card provides access to areas they are authorised to visit. In the future this card could offer Oyster card becoming similar to London Transport’s Oyster card, which also combines payment with access control for London’s underground trains and buses.
Pace said: "We have worked closely with Cardax in the past and are confident of bringing the systems together on the IP network. Using the network cameras and data from Cardax both of which utilise Microsoft SQL as their backends, we could quickly see who has been denied access at an access point, for example. The card could also be used as a door key for students entering their halls of residence.
"One area we are investigating is automatic charging for car parking, using network video cameras and either these access cards or automatic number plate recognition (ANPR). This is now feasible via Milestone Enterprise XProtect options. We are also looking at using Milestone’s ANPR functionality to help with identifying cars which are not registered to be on campus and, where appropriate, to pass registration plates onto the police."
System built for the future
Trevor Smith, customer account manager, University of East Anglia, said: "It was extremely important that we could build a relationship with a company that were willing to take the time to understand our unique set of requirements. This is cutting-edge technology and we were fortunate that these skills and knowledge were available to us from a locally based company. We have no doubt that this system has allowed our security division to offer an enhanced level of service to our students and staff".
Mike McCormark, campus services manager for UEA summarised: "We are very pleased with our partnership with CYS. Carl and his team understood our vision and could advise us and translate this vision into action. The UEA senior management sees that the surveillance system we now have in place is an asset and it fits in perfectly with our wider integration plans. It has radically changed the way we work for the better. We can be so much more effective in dealing with the few incidents we have now. We have a system which has room to grow and develop and a great platform to build on. We are very confident that we will work with CYS on future projects."
