Sen mar18 by Security Electronics & Networks Magazine

MARCH 2018 ISSUE 396

SUPER SENSORS

l Case Study: NZ National War Memorial l Special Report: Defending High Security Applications l Product Review: The Magic of S2 l News Report: Hills Digital l Product Review: Hikvision Darkfighter X PTZ l Alarm Monitoring: Hungry like the Fox l The Interview Wayne Trethowan, CSM

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Hikvision Oceania Unit 14a, 2 Eden Park Dr, Macquarie Park NSW 2113 Tel: +61 2 8599 4233 Email:salesau@hikvision.com

www.hikvision.com.au

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editorial S E CU RI TY E L ECTR O NI C S & NETWO R KS MA R C H 2 01 8 ISSUE 396

By John Adams

SECURITY MANAGEMENT > SECURITY SYSTEMS HAT does the current slew of networkable electronic security solutions offer security managers? Sometimes it seems that technology has a way of blinding end users to the operational demands of their sites. How many security managers regularly assess their security solutions in detail, considering overall capabilities and trying to ascertain exactly what it is these systems were designed to achieve and whether they are still achieving those tasks? Many security managers would not go to the trouble of regularly meshing security systems and the procedures handbook. Instead, after the initial excitement is over, electronic security systems become another sub system of a company’s overall infrastructure, with ongoing management neglected, contracted out to the disinterested, or handed to overworked staff who reside under a pile of other responsibilities. For instance, access control systems are often managed by staff in the mailroom or in the human resources department, and comprehensive reporting functions are rarely or never used. Cards are cancelled when lost, but because mailroom staff are busy, this process may take hours or days to carry out. It’s worse with video surveillance. In too many cases cameras are not regularly monitored, recordings are rarely viewed and when they are, the recordings are not managed carefully enough. Some recordings are lost and others wind up sitting unsecured in the download folder on the work laptops of staff too busy to notice. Alarm systems are also abused. After alarms have been activated, staff will ignore

It’s worse with video surveillance. In too many cases cameras are not regularly monitored, recordings are rarely viewed and when they are, the recordings are not managed properly carefully enough.

the fact fire stairs and side entry points are alarmed and they’ll use these doors for egress. Sit behind the console of a monitoring station at 5pm in the afternoon and you can see dozens of alarm systems being ignored by the staff they serve. Still more staff will return to an area in the afternoon without turning off alarms, leaving the system and the monitoring station in a turmoil of unnecessary events. As Luke Percy-Dove points out in our feature on defending high security applications, it’s impossible to avoid including manpower response as a key layer of site defence. Security managers need to look at manpower response as a meaningful extension of an electronic security platform, not an unplanned imposition which sees nervous junior managers responding to alarm events in the middle of the night wearing pyjamas. The arrival of security officers at a facility post-event represents your security system’s reaction to a security breach, so make sure you get the closest and best response team you can and make sure response time is fast. Trip an alarm every few months during and after hours – pay the few hundred dollars for the response – let patrol teams discover the entrance to your site so they can do it under pressure, when a real intrusion occurs. A simple truth is this. Electronic security systems don’t protect facilities in the way walls and gates do. If an intruder wants to get into a facility that’s not supported by physical security and does not care if this action is detected, then a breach will

occur. Make no mistake, if you install access readers, cameras and an alarm system your facility will not be secure. Instead these electronic security systems will alert, verify and record an intrusion event, allowing a managed response. And given that electronic security systems are management tools, not a form of actual physical protection, mismanaging these tools means every cent you’ve spent on them has been wasted. It’s vital when planning electronic security measures to spend only on those items that will actually give you what you want. Spend on systems that will be respected and used properly by staff. Systems should be installed that can be supported by procedures and that will continue to be employed in 5 years’ time. And when a system is being installed think carefully. Will this system do the required job? Will it be used? Who, how and when? And who will respond to the event notifications the system provides? Can systems be configured for better efficiency? Can systems be integrated for enhanced return on investment? Choosing electronic security systems is not just a matter of latching onto some vapourware you saw at a trade show or got enthused into buying by an eager sales team. In the mundane ebb and flow of everyday operations, those clever features will never be used. Instead your team will depend on those features that provide fundamental support in the long term, and that deliver the information they need to secure your facility in the simplest and most intuitive way. n

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FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE 395

WIDE ANGLES & HEMISPHERICS

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l Case Study: Westpac Stadium Takes Big View l MQU Camera test: The Laws of Motion l South Australia Police Go Digital l BNP Paribas Looks to Sony l Alarm Monitoring: Z-Wave’s 700 Series l Product Review: Sony SNC-VB642D Bullet l The Interview: Ran Vijay Singh, ESL l New Product: The Genesys of PSIM

See all the big products tests and product reviews + lots more in SEN’s monthly magazine

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12 36

40: HILLS DIGITAL

MAR 18 24: NZ NATIONAL WAR MEMORIAL Circuit Systems has installed Hikvision cameras, a Milestone VMS, and a Gallagher access control and intrusion detection solution at Pukeahu New Zealand National War Memorial Park in Wellington. The installation took place in lockstep with the creation of The Great War Exhibition, making it a fascinating and challenging application for all concerned.

Hills Ltd has opened a powerful new eCommerce site and brought its distribution centre inhouse as part of a move to streamline the business, enhance efficiencies and improve customer experience. 44: THE MAGIC OF S2 There have been plenty of changes since we last took a look at the S2 web-based access control, intrusion, automation and video surveillance solution â&#x20AC;&#x201C; key changes include the upgrades to the web interface, the release and enhancement of Magic Monitor and the release of monitoring and admin tool, Cumulus.

36: DEFENDING HIGH SECURITY APPLICATIONS One of the greatest challenges for any consultant, integrator or security manager is defending high security applications, particularly locations which are not purpose built or that must retain areas that face the public.

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48 64

regulars

48: HIKVISION DARKFIGHTER X PTZ FIRST IMPRESSIONS Hikvision Darkfighter X is a powerful IP66rated PTZ camera designed specifically for strength in low light applications at close and long ranges. Its key feature is a 2-sensor design, one sensor for colour and another monochrome. 58: OPEN AND SHUT CASE In April 2017 Security Merchants closed its doors and 4 weeks later a completely new business called Consolidated Security Merchants opened in the same buildings with many of the same staff, most the same suppliers and almost all the same customers. Wayne Trethowan tells John Adams how it happened.

MARCH 2018 ISSUE 396

SUPER SENSORS

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Publisher Bridge Publishing Aust. Pty Ltd ABN 11 083 704 858 PO Box 237 Darlinghurst NSW 1300 tel 61 2 9280 4425 fax 61 2 9280 4428 email info@bridge publishing.com.au

12 NEWS Latest business, product and technical news from Australia and around the world. 56: MONITORING People drone on about IoT but it’s always hard to imagine exactly how an internet of things could communicate – it’s tough enough after all to hold together an alarm and home automation solution comprised of a dozen devices and a few keypads. After a couple of years, half the system is without power and unless the installer stays on top of customer service, it gradually becomes a collection of dead electrical devices. 62: EDITOR’S CHOICE What’s new from our manufacturers. 64: HELPDESK Our team of electronic security experts answers your tough technical questions.

Editor John Adams Advertising Manager Monique Keatinge Customer Service Annette Mathews tel 61 2 9280 4425 annette@bridge publishing.com.au

Design Tania Simanowsky e: taniasdesign@ optusnet.com.au

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Vision-Box Contactless Biometric Customs Trial Begins At Sydney Airport in May p.14 Inner Range Expands Manufacturing and Warehousing p.16 Hills Security, Surveillance & IT Business Grows 4 Per Cent p.18 SNP to be Acquired by Singapore’s Certis Cisco p.20

NEWS IN BRIEF MARCH 2018

COMPILED BY JOHN ADAMS

FUTURE FIBRE TECHNOLOGIES, BQT INITIATE MERGER

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FUTURE Fibre Technologies reports that integration activity with owner of BQT MaxSec Group has commenced, with a programme management office (PMO) established under the leadership of an experienced integration director to track the implementation of the integration plan and ensure delivery of the merger. The newly merged group will operate as 2 divisions – the Services Division (AVA) and the Technology Division (FFT and BQT). According to FFT, Chris Fergus has been appointed group chief executive officer and will be employed under an inter-group

services agreement (between FFT and MSP subsidiary AVA Global DMCC). Chris Fergus holds 3,000,000 shares in FFT and a further 200,000 options over FFT shares. For the past 20 months Fergus has been the CEO of AVA Global, and SVP Strategy and Business Development for MaxSec Group Limited (MSP), as well as serving as an executive director on the board of MSP. He has served as a director of FFT for the past 15 months and was previously employed for 20 years with G4S, most recently as regional managing director, Middle East, managing a portfolio

Vlado Damjanovski

of security & FM joint ventures, with a total revenue in excess of US$1 billion. “I am excited to lead the merged group as we leverage the combined strengths of our experienced leadership team and innovative products and services to build a sales and marketing focussed global

risk management organisation,” Fergus said. After the merger is complete, Leigh Davis will assume the role of group chief financial officer and Rob Broomfield has been appointed chief operating officer of the Technology Division and Mark Horton has been

appointed sales and marketing director of the Technology Division. Geoff Cleaves will remain as chief executive officer of MSP. James Alston and Stefan Dingeldein have been appointed chief operating officer and sales and marketing director of the Services Division respectively.

now want to lead the way in ANZ.” Milestone’s planned growth for 2018 and beyond will in part be focused on an expansion of opportunities for open video platforms, with big data and interconnectivity bringing a wide range of new possibilities and markets. “Rather than capex, network video will come to be seen as a value-add

in coming years, as data touchpoints begin to bring new opportunities for better productivity and growth. Our job moving forward is to recognise these new markets and capitalise on this larger playing field,” said Cullis.

MILESTONE SYSTEMS TO EXPAND ANZ PRESENCE IN 2018 n AFTER recording strong growth in 2017, Milestone reports it plans to expand its presence in ANZ, with new partnerships set to be announced in coming months. Milestone Systems plans to capitalise on a very strong 2017 as well as positive future projections for growth in the digital security market and will commit more time and resources to growing the company’s profile in the channel and enterprise sectors. Earlier in the year Milestone appointed Jordan Cullis to

the role of south pacific country manager and the subsequent promotion of Angelo Salvatore to the position of regional channel director. Cullis is responsible for leading the team in developing new business opportunities, creating best of breed solutions to customer needs and securing growth in the region. “Milestone has always been very committed to bringing new innovations to the community with its open platform video management

system,” Cullis said. “At this exciting juncture where we see a lot more possibilities with video in the South Pacific region, I am excited to join Milestone and be a part of the evolution. “While we have seen significant success in some market areas in ANZ, the time is right for us to expand our activity in the region and look to new markets. My role will be to lead that expansion with our partners, systems integrators and managed service providers. We are the number one VMS vendor in the world, and we

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Exclusive to Hills

Continuing the evolution of Genetec integration to Tecom, TecomC4 gives you full control of access and alarm events with video integration. Learn more at tecomc4.com.au and request a demonstration today.

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NEWS MARCH 2018

ELECTRONIC SECURITY SOLUTION FOR $A8B OSBOURNE SHIPBUILDING PRECINCT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA n AUSTRALIAN Naval Infrastructure (ANI) is seeking the supply and installation of a security system as part of the $A525 million upgrade works being undertaken at Osborne Naval Shipbuilding Precinct (Surface Ships) Infrastructure Project in SA. Lendlease’ South Australian Building Unit has been awarded the managing contractor role for the overall project, with delivery phase works scheduled to commence in Q2 2018 and be completed in 2020, with priority tendering and procurement to occur Q2 2018. The Osborne Naval Shipbuilding Project involves the construction of new facilities required to support the continuous build programmes for warships. Civil and pavement works including a new car park, pedestrian bridge

over Mersey Road and apron/transition area, new manufacturing workshops, including steel fabrication, block assembly and erection, blast and paint facilities, offices and amenities and upgrades and modernisation of existing maintenance workshops, testing and qualification centres and warehouses and a wharf extension. The rapidly expanding Osborne Naval Shipbuilding Precinct currently consists of shipbuilding and submarine maintenance facilities which support ASC for the delivery of the Air Warfare Destroyers and maintenance of the Collins Class submarines. There are common user shipbuilding facilities, including a 213-metre wharf, runway, dry berth, transfer system and the largest ship lift in the southern hemisphere; a

commercial and education precinct, including the Naval Shipbuilding College – delivering the trade and technical skills required for future shipbuilding projects and the AWD Systems Centre – the national headquarters for the $8 billion project, as well as Raytheon Australia’s South Australian headquarters. The precinct is located at

Osborne, 25 kilometres north-west of Adelaide’s CBD, and is a 35-minute drive from Adelaide International Airport. It is also close to major national defence precincts Technology Park Adelaide and the Edinburgh Defence Precinct, home of RAAF Base Edinburgh and the Defence Science and Technology Group.

An industry briefing for the project will be held on Tuesday 6 March 2018 from 8am to 10am at Adelaide Pavillion, Veale Gardens, cnr South Terrace and Peacock Road, Adelaide. To attend please RSVP to ONSP@ lendlease.com with number attending by no later than 1 March 2018. The tender closes March 16.

VISION-BOX CONTACTLESS BIOMETRIC CUSTOMS TRIAL BEGINS AT SYDNEY AIRPORT IN MAY n SYDNEY Airport’s trial of Vision-Box contactless customs will begin in May, according to Sydney Airport chief executive, Geoff Culbert. “Your face will be your passport and boarding pass - there will be no fumbling for passports,” he said. “We are not aware of this being done to this extent anywhere else in the world,” he said.

Stats suggest facialrecognition technology at electronic gates in recent years has reduced the average amount of time people spend passing through customs from about 4 minutes to just 23 seconds. Qantas passengers who want to be part of the trial will be able to pass through the 6 steps of check in, bag drop, border processing,

security screening, airport lounge and boarding gate after showing their passport only once for verification. The airport said it would ensure that “relevant privacy issues are managed”. The Vision-Box solution being delivered at Sydney Airport is thought to be the world’s first automated contactless traveller clearance processes for

people arriving in Australia by air at all international airports. This contract is part of the Seamless Traveller program, which began in 2015 after the Australian Government selected the company to provide biometric border control SmartGates at all Airports’ departures. The 3-year contract will deliver the next generation of Automated Border Control passengerprocessing technology. Vision Box’s latest innovations will assist the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection to collect and verify biometric data from all passengers arriving at Australian International Airports. It will also deliver a new capability that will enable known travellers to self-process through the border without the need to physically use a passport (contactless), entirely relying on facial recognition technology. “This contract represents an unparalleled

milestone in the history of automation at the border, since it is the first time a government will implement biometric identification through contactless services,” said Miguel Leitmann of VisionBox. The use of biometrics is part of the airport’s plans to step up the use of technology. Sydney Airport will spend $A1.5 billion over the next 4 years on upgrades to its terminals and airfield. This includes up to $420 million this year on projects such as expanding terminal gates and resurfacing runways.

YOUR FACE WILL BE YOUR PASSPORT AND BOARDING PASS - THERE WILL BE NO FUMBLING FOR PASSPORTS... WE ARE NOT AWARE OF THIS BEING DONE TO THIS EXTENT ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

“YOUR FACE WILL B AND BOARDING PAS FUMBLING FOR PAS “WE ARE NOT AWAR DONE TO THIS EXTE IN THE WORLD,” HE

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NEWS MARCH 2018

ISCS ANNOUNCES PROTEGEWX STARTER PACK PROMOTION n ICSC has released a ProtegeWX Starter Pack special as a value-formoney introduction to the ProtegeWX product

PROTEGEWX HAS ALL THE FEATURES CUSTOMERS EXPECT IN SUCH A QUALITY PRODUCT INCLUDING IP ON BOARD, ACCESS CONTROL AND SECURITY CAPABILITIES, SMART APP FOR IPHONE AND ANDROID...

line. The pack includes a Protege WX single door controller, a TSEC DESFire reader and a Protege DIN Rail 2A Intelligent Power Supply to keep the system running. ProtegeWX has all the features customers expect in such a quality product including IP on board, access control and security capabilities, smart app for iPhone and Android as well as the ability to expand to 128 doors and up to 1000 alarm inputs

using Protege’s range of expander peripherals. ICSC managing director Stuart Harmer said the ProtegeWX Starter Pack gives integrators access to one of the most advanced access security control systems on the market, at an exceptional price. “The ProtegeWX is suitable for a variety of projects – from a small home to a multi-level high rise,” Harmer said. “The integrator can start off with a small yet powerful system and expand the system as their customers’

needs grow. “The intuitive wizarddriven web browser-based interface makes for quick and easy programming and installation, and the free mobile app – available for android and iPhones – allows the end user to arm and disarm the system, and control it form anywhere in the world.” The WX1 system is DIN rail-mounted, so installing is simple and it takes up very little panel real estate. The WX Starter Pack Special is available at ISCS until the end of March for

$A599 + GST. For more information go to www. iscs.com.au/protegewxstarter-pack-special

INNER RANGE EXPANDS MANUFACTURING AND WAREHOUSING

Evolution Access Control Providing the ultimate user friendly flexibility One EVO board can control: Doors Lifts Fire Doors Alarm Areas Doors and Alarm Areas Mix and match Multiple Credentials on the same board: Most Wiegand Proximity Readers Supported iButtton 1 –wire Readers Magnetic Card Readers Connect to the EVO board via TCP/IP RS485 Mix and match both the above. Easy to Configure Setup Wizard Easy to Use End users will be able to program the users themselves.

n INNER Range has recently completed the expansion of its manufacturing and warehousing divisions with the commissioning of a secondary offsite facility. “The offsite expansion has been driven by 2 important factors; year on year growth and ensuring Inner Range had a robust disaster recovery process,” said Peter Krincevski, Inner Range CEO. “Inner Range has enjoyed an annual growth of over 20 per cent over the last two years. This success is a result of our Integriti product in the enterprise space and the rapid growth of Inception in the commercial space. As a result, there was a need to expand both our manufacturing and warehouse footprint.” The offsite facility is

located within close proximity to the Inner Range head offices in Knoxfield Victoria, with the additional 800 square meter facility taking Inner Range’s overall footprint to 4000 square meters. The additional facility provides a significant increase in bulk materials warehousing and manufacturing capacity. “The additional location provides assurance to continuity of supply through an increase in production capacity and warehousing for raw materials and ‘ready to sell’ product,” said Quenten Knoll, Inner Range operations manager. “This allows us to produce, warehouse and despatch finished goods in line with rollout schedules for our growing major projects sector.”

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NEWS MARCH 2018

HILLS SECURITY, SURVEILLANCE & IT BUSINESS GROWS 4 PER CENT n HILLS Security, Surveillance and IT business, (comprising the Group’s largest division) had a solid first half, delivering 4 per cent growth over the corresponding half in FY17 while maintaining similar margins. Hills Enterprise business won a number of projects during the period including: • Supply of Vivotek IP cameras at Sydney Trains with Indra Australia; • Working with Siemens supplied Genetec unified IP security solutions and Axis IP Cameras to Woodside Petroleum HQ Perth • Supply of Axis IP Cameras and Ipsotek analytics through SAAB for Queensland Corrections. This success was fuelled by growth in many of Hills key vendor sales including Genetec, UTC, Axis, Pelco, Vivotek and TruVision. The Hills IT business had very strong sales in the first half, with networking vendors Ruckus, Brocade and Extreme Networks all achieving growth.Hills Australian SMB business and Hills New Zealand

(NZ) are both expected to strengthen their performance in the second half. “It was encouraging to see the growth in the largest part of Hills business in the first half,” Hills’ MD and CEO David Lenz said. “With the successful launch of our new distribution centre and e-commerce platform, we expect to see continued growth in the current half.” In other parts of the business Hills Health business continued its momentum with strong Nurse Call sales, which grew 23 per cent over the previous corresponding period. This was offset partially by a slight decline in Patient Entertainment revenue, however, overall margin quality improved in the first half. Hills continued to win key contracts in the first half of FY18, including Royal Hobart Hospital (Nurse Call and Infant Protection System) and 2 Baptcare Nurse Call contracts. Hills Audio Visual (AV) business saw revenues decline slightly, but has maintained solid margins, limiting the profit impact. Hills has successfully

launched its market leading e-commerce platform across Australia and New Zealand. Lenz said the launch of the new e-commerce site ushered in a new era in customer service at Hills. “Early indicators are we would expect to see a sales uplift of over 10 per cent based on similar system deployments in the ANZ market and a similar improvement in overall productivity,” he said. Meanwhile, the new national distribution centre continues to deliver improved operational and customer service benefits and we expect to gain further productivity improvements within the facility. Overall revenues fell by $A21 million, while debt also fell by $4 million, and cash flows increased by $8 million. The revenue decline was due primarily to exiting an unprofitable NBN satellite installation business ($13m) and a shortfall in antenna sales ($5m) due to the competitive Pay TV landscape.

INTEGRATOR PMT SECURITY CONTINUES NATIONAL GROWTH WITH SALES HIRE n PMT Security has continued its national growth phase with the appointment of Peter Ellis as NSW sales consultant, major systems. “Peter is a seasoned security sales professional with over 30 years’ experience in major systems. Peter has had a long history of managing major government and commercial clients nationally,” said Darren

Taylor, managing director of PMT security. “In this role Peter will be instrumental in building and maintaining strong relationships with new and existing major customers within the retail, commercial and government space. We are pleased to welcome Peter to the PMT family – he brings a fresh focus, a wealth of knowledge and great experience to our team.”

Peter Ellis

BOSCH SECURITY SYSTEMS TO BE RENAMED BOSCH BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES n FROM March 1, 2018, Bosch Security Systems division will be known as Bosch Building Technologies, with the Bosch video systems, intrusion detection and access control business units merged to form one security business unit for integrated solutions. “We want the scope of our portfolio to be reflected better in our name as well,” Gert van Iperen, president of the Bosch Security Systems division, states in an announcement. The global product business — to be known as Bosch Security and Safety Systems — will continue to operate as a global supplier of video surveillance, intrusion, fire-alarm and voice-alarm systems, as well as of access control systems and management software, all under the Bosch brand. Its portfolio will include professional audio and conference systems for

the transmission of voice, sound and music. The products are distributed exclusively to system integrators or through wholesale dealers. “In combining these three business units, our aim is to ensure we can meet our customers’ needs even better in the future. In the years ahead, we want to actively shape the process of transformation brought about by the internet of things, as well as to focus more on connectivity, integrated solutions, and services. At the same time, this move will strengthen our competitiveness,” van Iperen says.

Mike Gert van Iperen Richardson

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SNP TO BE ACQUIRED BY SINGAPORE’S CERTIS CISCO n AUSTRALIA’S third largest security firm, SNP, has entered into a binding sale agreement under which 100 per cent of SNP shares will be sold to Certis Cisco, Singapore’s largest security organisation. Certis Cisco has an existing security business in Australia, BRI. With the addition of SNP, Certis Cisco will establish a new organisation, Certis Security Australia. Tom Roche, SNP’s managing director for the last 25 years, will be appointed to lead Certis Security Australia. He will work closely with the Certis Cisco to deliver seamless service during

the integration. Paul Chong, president and group chief executive Officer of Certis Cisco, said the new venture was a logical fit for Certis Cisco as they see SNP and the Australian market as critical to their strategic direction. “Over its 95-year history, SNP has built a reputation as an industry leader in customer service, innovation and developing partnership advocacy,” Chong said. “We believe that Certis Cisco and SNP share similar core values and beliefs, and we are genuinely excited about the growth prospects for the

expanded group.” According to Tom Roche, Certis Cisco is a highly impressive and professional business, with a deep understanding of all facets of the security sector, and integrated facilities management. “Their extensive access to technology will drive operational efficiencies and bring extensive opportunities to increase our agility and proposition as a business,” Roche said. “We look forward to leveraging Certis Cisco’s operational technology expertise to enhance our fully integrated solution offering to the market and, in doing so, further

GLOBAL VIDEO SURVEILLANCE MARKET FORECAST TO EXCEED $39B BY 2023 n GLOBAL video surveillance markets are expected to reach an estimated $39.3 billion by 2023, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.3 per cent, with APAC growing fastest, according to a new report by researchandmarkets. com. The future of the global video surveillance market looks promising with opportunities in the commercial, government, transportation and residential sector, according to the report. The major growth drivers cited for the market include increasing

awareness for safety and security, increasing crime rate and growing adoption of IP security cameras. Emerging trends, which have a direct impact on the dynamics of the video surveillance industry, include advanced 360-degree camera technology, utilization of software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, and enhanced camera capabilities for video management systems. IP surveillance systems are expected to remain the largest solution type and are also expected to witness highest

growth due to growing development of smart city and smart home applications. Additionally, technological innovations, real-time access, integration of wireless technologies, video analytics, and affordability are factors driving the growth of the IP camera market. The commercial segment is expected to remain the largest end-use market and witness the highest growth over the forecast period due to increasing demand in hotels, banks and retail enterprises. Expansion of financial institution coupled with increasing need for building security and monitoring customer and staff activities further spurred the growth for video surveillance. Asia Pacific is expected to remain the largest market and is also expected to witness the highest growth over the forecast period. Market drivers include an increasing number of hotels and financial institutions, along with small- and medium-enterprise growth in China, India and other emerging nations.

enhance our long-standing customer relationships.” Founded in 1923, SNP has grown to become one of Australia’s leading security services providers and the leading aviation security provider in Australia, with more than 2500 employees nationwide. Meanwhile, Certis Cisco offers complete end-toend security solutions, from armed and unarmed physical security to cyber security, with extensive experience in aviation and critical infrastructure security, including the provision of security services at Singapore’s Changi International Airport. Certis Cisco has

Tom Roche

a strong presence in the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East, employing 34,000 people. The acquisition does not include SNP’s shareholding in Telstra SNP Monitoring (TSM).

CULTURE HOLDING BACK GOVERNMENT CLOUD APPLICATIONS

n MICHAEL Fairless, branch chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, told FCW’s Security Innovation in the Cloud workshop in Washington that culture was holding back government cloud applications. “The goal of federal cloud services should be to have a customer meeting on Monday and eight days later have a complete solution that gives that customer everything they need,” Fairless said. “I’m not sure we can get to that world in the government, but I’d like to think we can at least try - culture is a huge driver,” Fairless said, calling it the “biggest challenge the government faces.” Fairless said IT workers don’t speak a common language when it comes

to the cloud because cloud providers have a unique and proprietary languages and solutions that do same thing in a different way. “We must eliminate ambiguity, otherwise, we will build things that cost a lot of money but won’t deliver a lot of value.” Fairless said. According to Fairless, government agencies must start thinking like cloud brokers. “How are we going to build services out so that we are meeting customers’ needs, delivering those services in a timely fashion, and ultimately, that they are safe, secure and easy to use?” he said. A key goal should be to “put innovators in front of the problem,” and for those workers who aren’t excited about change, “get them excited about it.”

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MOTOROLA TO ACQUIRE CCTV MANUFACTURER AVIGILON FOR $US1 BILLION FLIR UNLOADS LOREX TO DAHUA FOR $US29 MILLION FLIR has divested its economy CCTV brand Lorex to Dahua for a nominal $US29 million as part of renewed focus on critical infrastructure and enterprise markets. FLIR bought Lorex in 2012 for $60 million. FLIR said that despite falling sales, Lorex generated $US140 million in revenue last year and FLIR expects to record a GAAP non-cash charge of approximately $23.6 million related to the sale. “This divestiture will focus our security business on critical infrastructure and enterprise segments of the broader security market, which are attractive customer bases for our differentiating technologies,” says FLIR President and CEO Jim Cannon. “As we assessed our position and opportunities in the security and surveillance space, we determined that this business no longer fits our strategy to build intelligent, turnkey security solutions that are based on multiple wavelengths.” Dahua served as the primary OEM supplier of video surveillance products to Lorex prior to the acquisition. Lorex, which will continue to operate independently as an autonomous business unit, brings to Dahua strong relationships with leading North American retailers, according to a statement. “These are formidable assets that will complement Dahua’s already impressive strengths and resources,” the company said.

Mike Richardson Jum Cannon

n Motorola Solutions has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Avigilon in an all-cash transaction that will enhance Motorola Solutions’ portfolio of missioncritical communications technologies. Under the terms of the agreement, Motorola Solutions will acquire all of Avigilon’s outstanding shares for CAD$27.00 per share. The enterprise value of the transaction is approximately US$1.0 billion, including Avigilon’s net debt. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Avigilon designs, develops and manufactures advanced security surveillance solutions, including video analytics, network video management software and hardware, surveillance cameras, and access control solutions. “This acquisition will bring Avigilon’s advanced video surveillance and analytics platform to the rapidly evolving public safety workflow, while also expanding our portfolio with new products and technologies for

Greg Brown

commercial customers,” said Greg Brown, chairman and CEO, Motorola Solutions. “Video can play a powerful role in creating safer cities and thriving businesses. It can serve as highly efficient ‘eyes and ears’ for monitoring a given location, and advanced video analytics can proactively alert officials to a perimeter breach or quickly find a person who left behind an object of

interest.” “We’re very pleased to be joining Motorola Solutions, as their vision and strategy aligns fully with our own,” said Alexander Fernandes, Avigilon’s founder, chief executive officer and chairman of the board. “This combination will bring new opportunities to Avigilon, allowing us to accelerate our innovation and provide even more value to our customers.”

UNDER THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT, MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS WILL ACQUIRE ALL OF AVIGILON’S OUTSTANDING SHARES FOR CAD$27.00 PER SHARE. THE ENTERPRISE VALUE OF THE TRANSACTION IS APPROXIMATELY US$1.0 BILLION, INCLUDING AVIGILON’S NET DEBT.

HILLS APPOINTS LENZ MANAGING DIRECTOR n THE Board of Hills Limited is pleased to announce the appointment of David Lenz as managing director, effective from 19 February 2018. “The Hills’ board congratulates David on this appointment,” said Jennifer Hill-Ling, Hills chairman. “Prior to taking on the role of CEO in September 2016, David played key leadership role as the chief operations officer and head of Hills’ key Building Technologies Division. “As CEO, David has been the driving force behind the implementation of Hills turnaround

strategies including bringing Hills supply chain operations inhouse and the delivery of the new e-commerce platform to better serve our customers. David has a deep understanding of the industries and markets Hills operate in, and a proven ability to work with customers, vendors and partners to drive growth and deliver results,” she said. Lenz has more than 25 years’ experience in sales, business development, management and operational leadership across Australia and New Zealand, Asia Pacific and the Global ICT markets.

Prior to joining Hills in March 2015, David enjoyed a distinguished career with Ingram Micro, where he spent the last seven years in key roles, most recently heading the Specialty Division, focusing on security and pro AV. “The business continues its transformational journey and I am excited and committed to continuing to lead this iconic company through this time of change,” said Lenz. “There have been a number of challenges along the way, however, I am pleased with our progress on executing the

strategies and initiatives that will return the business to profitability and I look forward to delivering value back to our shareholders.”

David Lenz

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ROSEHILL SECURITY ANNOUNCES APAC PARTNERSHIP, DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT WITH EZI SECURITY SYSTEMS n Rosehill Security has announced a channel partner and distribution agreement for Australasia and Asia with Ezi Security Systems, for the company’s innovative range of hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) and perimeter security products. Manufactured from 100 per cent recycled rubber, bonded with polyurethane for strength, the Impakt Defender has been specifically designed and developed to protect against vehicle borne attacks. Requiring no foundations, the IWA14 rated vehicle security barrier is quick and easy to install, yet provides excellent impact resistance and is capable of bringing to a stop a heavy vehicle

travelling at 48km/hr. Its tough construction enables it to be installed almost anywhere, removed and used again and again. “In response to the growing worldwide trend of hostile vehicle attacks, Ezi Security Systems’ customers across government and private industry are looking for solutions to protect crowded spaces and infrastructure,” said Rod Acland, business development manager at Ezi Security Systems. “With its rigorous focus on meeting the security requirements of its customers, Ezi Security Systems has added Rosehill Security’s Impakt Defender vehicle

security barrier (VSB) to its high security product range. “Our clients entrust us to protect their most precious assets, their personnel and physical infrastructure. One of the biggest challenges they are facing is the risk posed by hostile vehicles. Ensuring we provide them with appropriate security solutions is of paramount importance to us. Our partnership with Rosehill Security means we can provide our customers with a proven, quality solution for their security needs.” The security of public spaces and keeping the public safe at events remains a high priority for security specialists across government and business. “Since its launch last

year, the Impakt Defender has gone from strength to strength, being used at a range of events and prestigious locations in the UK to protect the public and physical infrastructure from vehicle borne attacks,” said Alex Celik, managing

director of Rosehill Security. “We are delighted to partner with Ezi Security Systems to give their customers across the Asia-Pacific region access to a proven and innovative hostile vehicle mitigation solution.”

AUSTRALIA’S VICTORIA POLICE TO DEPLOY 11,000 AXON BODY CAMERAS & EVIDENCE.COM n AXON Public Safety Australia has announced the purchase of 11,000 Axon Body 2 cameras by Victoria Police in Australia and a 5-year subscription to the Axon cloud solution, Evidence.com, to help store, manage and share data from the body cameras and other digital evidence sources. The order was received in the first quarter of 2018 and will begin shipping in the second

quarter of 2018. Victoria Police will begin a staggered roll-out of the body cameras in April 2018 with the goal of outfitting all front-line police officers with cameras by 2020. The roll-out will commence with an initial pilot at 2 police stations as part of Victoria Police’s response to the Family Violence Royal Commission. The goal is to capture victim and perpetrator statements

of family violence-related crimes more immediately by the first officers responding to the scene. The immediacy of these testimonies could help improve the overall judicial process by reducing the time victims need to spend in court. “We are thrilled to see Victoria Police transform their agency with the adoption of body-worn camera technology,” says

Axon CEO and founder Rick Smith. “We are proud that our investments in our rich hardware and software ecosystem allow us to be able to fulfill large-scale deployments such as this.” Victoria Police is the latest police force in Australia to join the Axon network, following Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Northern Territory Police. QPS recently conducted a case study on the effects of body-worn cameras on domestic and family violence (DFV) cases. Results showed a 22 per cent projected increase in DFV reporting when first officers responding to the scene were wearing body cameras.

VICTORIA POLICE WILL BEGIN A STAGGERED ROLLOUT OF THE BODY CAMERAS IN APRIL 2018 WITH THE GOAL OF OUTFITTING ALL FRONT-LINE POLICE OFFICERS WITH CAMERAS BY 2020.

C R KENNEDY MOVES PERTH OFFICE TO NEW BALCATTA FACILITY

C R KENNEDY has moved its Perth office to bigger, brighter facilities at number 5 Gibberd Rd, Balcatta. “After 18 years servicing our clients at the Leederville Perth location, the company has completely outgrown the existing building,” said Phil Viggiano. “The new Balcatta site has had an extensive 6month refit and make over with a huge service centre created to better service our customers.”

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NZ NATIONAL WAR MEMORIAL Circuit Systems has installed Hikvision cameras, a Milestone VMS, and a Gallagher access control and intrusion detection solution at Pukeahu New Zealand National War Memorial Park in Wellington. The installation took place in lockstep with the creation of The Great War Exhibition, making it a fascinating and challenging application for all concerned.

UKEAHU National War Memorial Park is a precinct more than one place. The former Dominion Museum housing The Great War Exhibition and the newly opened Pukeahu National War Memorial Park, including the Australian Memorial, rotate around the spindle of the Carillion, under which lies the Hall of Memories. Recently, the whole National War Memorial precinct has undergone a $NZ10 million makeover, at the heart of which is The Great War Exhibition located in the hall of the old Dominion Museum Building. TGWE was created by film maker Sir Peter Jackson using the resources of Wingnut Films

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BY J O H N A D A M S

and the Weta Workshop and was timed to open in conjunction with the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in time for the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. It goes without saying that this looming deadline, as well as the need for creative, technical and building teams to work alongside one another, were key challenge for the security installation team. According to The Great War Exhibition general manager, Dave Clearwater, who works for National Military Heritage Charitable Trust, the security solution at the National War Memorial has 2-pronged operational goals. “Firstly, the system is there for security of staff and visitors during the working day, which is why we’ve got the control room upstairs to ensure that if there’s a need for action to address an elderly person’s health issue or a security issue, security staff can take action,” Clearwater explains. “Secondly, there’s after hours protection of the overall site in case of a break-in – this relates not only to the value

WE HAVE ALARMS AND ACCESS CONTROL, AS WELL AS CCTV CAMERAS THAT GATHER AND RECORD FOOTAGE 24 X 7 ALLOWING US TO MONITOR EVENTS IN REAL TIME ON THE VIDEO WALL OR GO BACK AND VIEW EVENTS.

of items in the exhibition. Management brought defence in on security system planning given the number of weapons we have here. This input saw the application of a comprehensive mix of security systems, as well as the presence of onsite security officers. “We have alarms and access control, as well as CCTV cameras that gather and record footage 24 x 7 allowing us to monitor events in real time on the video wall or go back and view events. Once detected, operators can use radio to call in an appropriate response. The security system has comprehensive capabilities - we were called out the other day because a break-glass sensor in the café was activated by cutlery being dropped on the floor.” Clearwater says the catalyst for creation of The Great War Exhibition was as a national acknowledgement of New Zealand’s role and sacrifice in the Great War and represented a partnership between the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and the National Military Heritage Charitable Trust, of which Sir Peter Jackson is a board member. An important contribution to the exhibition are many items from Sir Peter’s personal collection. “To put the project into context, The Great War Exhibition and all supporting services, were constructed in the great hall of the former Dominion Museum in just 14 weeks,” Clearwater explains. “The express time frame put everyone under extreme pressure. To keep up with the schedule, the security integration team installed part of the system without knowing what the end requirement would be, while the artists building the exhibit were not certain how the finished exhibit would look. It’s fair to say that the exhibition evolved in real time like a film set suddenly the creative team would say; ‘Let’s do this, it’s going to look better’ and contractors would need to go back and work around the changes. When the exhibit opened it was as if the paint was still wet.” Clearwater says that management contracted integrator Circuit Systems to install a particular

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number of cameras at the site but certain specifics of the application – such as where all the cameras would be installed – needed to be left open. “Given the time pressures and the nature of The Great War Exhibition, management decided to install the security systems to its own timeline to ensure everything worked,” he says. “We considered that adjusting some camera views later on would be far easier than beginning the entire job of installing the security systems after the exhibition had opened. “The impact of the creative side of the site and the tight time frame meant we weren’t able to go through the planned pre-construction process we would ordinarily have undertaken,” he explains. “This meant many contractors, including the security integrators, were working as well as they could with limited knowledge of the final design. The key to managing that successfully was to ensure the system design remained flexible.” According to Clearwater, putting the exhibit together logistically was challenging in the extreme. A wall needed to be removed so a modified 3-ton Dennis motor bus could be added. Then part of the roof had to be removed and the largest crane in New Zealand brought down to lower a 9-ton British Mark I tank into position. Then there was the addition of support under the floor for these and other heavy items, an addition which created an incline in the floor that impacted on other aspects of the project. Clearwater says that the nature of the exhibition meant that internal aesthetics were crucial, and this influenced everything including the security systems.

THE IMPACT OF THE CREATIVE SIDE OF THE SITE AND THE TIGHT TIME FRAME MEANT WE WEREN’T ABLE TO GO THROUGH THE PLANNED PRECONSTRUCTION PROCESS WE WOULD ORDINARILY HAVE UNDERTAKEN.

“To avoid conflicting with the realism of the exhibition, Sir Peter Jackson wanted all security devices to be as discrete as possible,” explains Clearwater. “It’s like a series of film sets and you can’t have their continuity impacted on by visible security cameras or other sensors – this meant discretion was an important aspect of the installation that posed challenges. Security devices had to be built into the set or hidden in the darkness around the edges. “Obviously, the system is working exceptionally well as far as we are concerned, as is the exhibition – it’s the only attraction in Wellington that rates 5 out of 5 stars on Trip Advisor and sits number 2 nationally behind Te Papa Tongarewa, which has been going 20 years.”

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WALKING THE SITE After a quick chat about the application, the first thing we do is take a walk through the site in order to get a sense of its scale and the challenges it posed the integration team. My grandfather and great uncle fought in the Otago Infantry Brigade in WW1, while Dad flew F4U Corsairs with RNZAF 24 Squadron in the Pacific War, so visiting New Zealand’s National War Memorial was always going to be compelling. Regardless of that personal sense of connection, The Great War Exhibition is a moving experience in its own right, contriving to provoke powerful engagement with raw material. Listening to my recordings later, there were long periods of silence during our tour. Faced with the realism of some displays, I found myself thinking of Kiwi John Lee’s forgotten personal account, Civilian into Soldier, an unflinching barrage of a book that never stops crashing out. Like a film, The Great War Exhibition takes visitors on a temporal journey through vignettes of the great war, beginning in a cobbled street in a Belgian town in pre-war 1914. As you move forward, a military truck morphs into a civilian omnibus seconded as

FOR SECURITY TEAM AND INSTALLERS, MANAGING LOW LIGHT IN THE EXHIBITION SPACE IS A CENTRAL ASPECT OF THE SURVEILLANCE SOLUTION AT THE NATIONAL WAR MEMORIAL AND THEY HANDLE IT WITH DAY/NIGHT CAMERAS AND INTEGRATED IR.

Troop ship

a troop carrier, an exact replica of a Maurice Farman ‘pusher’ biplane with death’s head prow swoops overhead, menacing a gun limber at full gallop. We pass heavy guns, muzzles pointed skyward, loaders bent to their work. Further in, a British Mark I tank launches itself from the lip of a shattered trench, under its tracks life-size German soldiers crouch, teeth bared like cornered animals. We round a corner out of darkness to face 3 stormtroopers dehumanised by gas masks charging the corridor from the open end of a low trench. After getting over the shock I see they are heavily armed – one with a Bergmann MP18 – the world’s first combat submachine gun - another with a flame thrower and the third with a sling of potato masher concussion stielhandgranates. If all this war stuff seems a bit intense, that’s because The Great War Exhibition is intense. Through the powerful agency of its exhibits, battle scenes and near 3-dimensional colourised photography, The Great War Exhibition bursts out of the past into endless moment. There’s a profound connection between the surveillance system and the exhibits themselves that CCTV people will recognise – light. The carefully planned lighting of The Great War Exhibition serves narrative, not identification of visitors. This makes the significant areas of the exhibition the second most challenging CCTV application I’ve ever seen – the first being the lowest levels of the MONA museum in Hobart. For security team and installers, managing low light in the exhibition space is a central aspect of the surveillance solution across the entire National War Memorial and they handle it with day/night cameras and integrated IR. Low light is not the only challenge – there are strong bright points of light from floodlight clusters. Many of the cameras in the darkened sections of the exhibition are simply impossible to photograph – it’s highly unusual for my -3EV DSLR to fail to attain automatic focus but that happens here multiple times. Then there are different colour temperatures in the same area, high and low ceilings, variable angles of view and lines of sight blocked by vehicles and weapons.

THE SYSTEM A range of systems combine to secure the National War Memorial and to protect multiple locations across the precinct. There are cameras around the Carillion and in the Memorial Park along with a camera inside the Dominion Museum building and throughout The Great War Exhibition itself. A remote

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Operator Mike Hills

site, the Queen Elizabeth 2 Education Centre, is also connected to the control room via 1000m of fibre. Alongside the surveillance system is a Gallagher access control solution supporting a constellation of alarm sensors – reeds, AIRs beams, glass break sensors and volumetric sensors. Managing CCTV is handled by Milestone XProtect Corporate, while alarm and access events are managed by Gallagher Command Centre, with an instance of the event log included in the video wall of the control room for real time synthesis by security staff. There are around 40 Hikvision cameras in the video surveillance system - a mix of fixed cameras, fixed domes and PTZs – many with integrated IR. These include 19 mini PTZ DS-2DE4220 cameras, 4 DS-2DE4332FWD-IZ 3MP IR 120dB WDR domes and a DS-1100KI joystick controller. Mounted on the Carillion to allow surveillance of the front entrance of The Great War Exhibition in the Dominion Museum Building is a powerful 36x Hikvision PTZ. The CCTV system also includes Hikvision NVRs in a number of remote locations. The network inside the exhibition building is Cat-6 and remote locations come in via wireless links or on fibre runs. The cabling was pulled in by a mix of contractors and security technicians. In terms of mounting points, cameras are positioned as discretely as possible, many hand-painted by the installation team to blend in with the background of the exhibition.

THE INSTALLATION From the point of view of the security installation team, New Zealand National War Memorial was challenging and rewarding. According to Circuit Systems technician Isaac Monk-Taingahue, the central challenge of the installation was time. The Great War Exhibition, which forms the heart of the

installation, was built very quickly and with no set plan - the installation process was a shifting target thanks to the simultaneous creative process. “The artists had a general layout but had not decided exactly how the exhibition would fit together,” Monk-Taingahue explains. “This meant some cameras needed to be moved a number of times – in one case 4 times – to meet changes made to an exhibit. “You would install a camera, start working around the corner and come back and there would be a wall obscuring the camera view. You’d say to an artist ‘how is this area going to look’, and they’d say, ‘come back in an hour and see – I don’t know either’. At one point we installed a camera on a wall, went to lunch and when we came back the creative team needed to place a window where our camera was installed. “To manage the potential for change, we would run a cable into an area where it would allow us to install cameras here, there and there – that gave us the flexibility we needed to meet the moving target. In some places when the artists finished working we’d say, ‘can we put a camera in here?’ and they would say yes or no. So there were parts of the system that were set but other parts could not be. “Because of the time constraints, there were multiple trades on site at once - all trying to meet their own deadlines and work around the creative business of constructing an exhibit which like a film set, kept evolving in real time.” According to Taingahue-Monk, there were 5 security installers on the job typically, often working from 7.30am to 11.30pm sometimes 16 or 18 hours a day as the deadline got closer. “We worked early mornings, late nights, over Easter – we worked whenever we could to meet that tight schedule and all the other trades and all the artists were doing exactly the same thing.”

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Making the work somewhat easier was the fact the Dominion Museum building was a greenfield site from the point of view of security electronics – Massey University occupied the site prior to the construction of TGWE in the great hall, so there was no need to install adjacent security systems and cut over, or to wrestle with the merger of sprawling access control databases. “In terms of the application of cameras, we used cameras with varifocal lenses and focused first on placing cameras where it was decided they could be, then we adjusted the angles of view,” TaingahueMonk says. “Because depths of field are quite small, the angles of view are at wider default settings in most cases. “We brought the cable to the camera points any way we could – sometimes there was a cavity behind a false wall, other times we needed to surface mount. In some cases, we were able to install cameras by dropping cable down from the exposed cable tray – these were the easier cameras to install. In terms

Milestone video wall

WHILE THE SHORT TIME FRAME POSED CHALLENGES IN SOME WAYS, IT ALSO MADE FOR A GREAT WORKING ENVIRONMENT BECAUSE ALL THE CONTRACTORS AND THE ARTISTS JUST HAD TO GET ALONG. of placement, there are entrance cameras that get face recognition at the entry, though the spaces are small enough in size that most the cameras will get face recognition wherever there’s sufficient light and recognisable characteristics in darker sections. “The hardest camera was above the bakery at the start of the exhibition – it was moved so many times,” he explains. “Other cameras had aspects that were easy and challenging – they had conduit near them for easy connection, but the connection had to be made through a box section. Ceiling heights were an issue for all the contractors and there were limited locations for scaffolding.” According to Taingahue-Monk, the access control and intrusion detection system was going in at the same time as the CCTV. This supports prox readers for secure doors, as well as reed switches, sensors and AIRs beams for intrusion detection. There’s low level integration between sub systems – for instance, the access control system is integrated with the PA system, but there’s no connection between CCTV and access control. “While the short time frame posed challenges in some ways, it also made for a great working environment because all the contractors and the artists just had to get along,” Taingahue-Monk says. “Given the nature of the site, there was a sense of creating something bigger than ourselves. This site means something to New Zealanders and to Aussies as well – it wasn’t a shopping centre or anything like that. We were also working alongside multiple trades and artists, which was different. “With the short time-frame it could have gone 2 ways, with everybody stressed and working against each other but that did not happen - everyone realised this is a special place, an important place and not just another job,” he says. “Given the time frame the effort was unreal – it came at us thick and fast but it was a special installation - there was a good

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culture here, and artists and contractors worked well together.”

THE CONTROL ROOM The heart of the security solution at the National War Memorial is the control room tucked away on the second floor and manned by contracted security staff from Simply Security. As soon as you look at the video wall you can see the challenges of the application, as well as its unquestionable power. Dark holes in the exhibition area are lit up by infrared and image quality shows good contrast and sharpness, as well as excellent management of bright points of light. Blooming is very well controlled. After we look at the IR-supported cameras, security officer Mike Hills starts off steering the big wireless-linked PTZ on the Carillion around to the mouth of the Victoria Tunnel on a distant hillside – as he does so it’s almost possible to read number plates. As well as the ability to get longer views, this camera’s primary role is the ability to shift between offering situational awareness and high-quality face recognition at the entrance to The Great War Exhibition. The PTZ capability also means the

camera can be moved to focus on areas of interest during events or busy times. “Our security operator has the ability to view all necessary areas of the site - the cameras you can see on the video wall here are around the Carillion and these ones here are from the Queen Elizabeth 2 Education Centre 1000m away – the security team here monitor that building as well,” explains Clearwater. “As an example of the system’s capability, the PTZ on the Carillion is magnificent – I love the control operators have over it, the capability to look deep into scenes like the entrance to Victoria Tunnel.” Clearwater says it was a quick process for the security team to get a handle on the management system. “Security staff are working with products they were familiar with and had identified those solutions that were fit for purpose in advance, so everything works exceptionally well,” he explains. “Incidentally, the security team is empowered to research CCTV products they believe will enhance the solution we have here. It’s also fair to say the Wingnut Films team had input into what they thought would work best for us.” In keeping with the nature of The Great War Exhibition experience, a future development of the site to be completed by August 2018 will include a Trench Exhibit with 60 metres of trenches designed to mirror Quinn’s Post at Chunuk Bair above the Gallipoli beach-head. This development, to be completed by April 2018, will include tunnels, with CCTV cameras located above the trenches as well as inside the tunnels. All these new cameras will be monitored here in the control room. Operator Mike Hills is quick to heap praise on the performance of the system he’s driving. “I’ve worked at other major sites around New Zealand – including some large and complex sites – and they have Frankenstein electronic security systems that have been added onto over many years with no operational consistency,” he says. “Comparatively, this solution at the National War Memorial is like a Lamborghini from an operator’s point of view. It has incredible control – everything is in tune and works together. You don’t have to do any kind of logical bridging of gaps, it’s simply complete. “During the setup and commissioning of the system, I set out the layout of the cameras on the video wall and it’s just left to right, left to right, so you can’t get it wrong. Everything that flashes up is right in front of your eyes. Importantly, I also have a Gallagher event log on a monitor in the video wall – this allows me to view video of access or alarm events as they occur.” Hills says that when you get used to a multimonitor video wall like this, getting an overview of key camera views across the site becomes an unconscious exercise. “It’s like driving your car home then wondering

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Getting hacked could get you fined Every company has data that is valuable to a cyberthief. In the age of sophisticated cyberattacks, no business is immune to a data breach. The Australian Government is getting tough on data breaches - by 22nd February 2018, businesses will need to have measures in place to protect their network from a breach and if a compromise occurs, heavy fines will apply. It's time to get your business in shape for the new data breach legislation. Talk to Sektor and Extreme Networks to find out how the latest network and software tools can protect, analyse, and monitor your network - keeping you compliant and ready with the new laws and safe from any cybersecurity threat. Learn more about how Sektor can assist your organisation at 1300 273 586 or extreme@sektor.com.au.

www.extremenetworks.com/security

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27/2/18 11:58 am

● Case study

War Memorial

Ray Foster of supplier Atlas Gentech (left) with Isaac Monk-Taingahue and Dave Clearwater

how you got there,” he says. “If I sub-consciously notice anyone stepping into an area they should not be – for instance those cameras second screen down, first column – I will be straight onto it almost before I’m aware something is wrong. And in terms of response, we can have a security officer anywhere in the building in not much more than a minute. “With this system we don’t miss much. We can see any medical emergencies, and nobody can break in without detection. There are reed switches, glass breaks, vibration alarms, beams. The way the system is laid out makes working long shifts much easier. If this was one of the other systems I’ve used, you would be having to work very hard to make the system function as it should but not with this. I like this.” I point out the performance of cameras running in monochrome with IR in the dark parts of the exhibit – it’s pretty solid, isn’t it? There’s nice contrast for faces and fine details – you must be pleased with that? “Yes, we do get good faces in low light and the cameras are capable of even better performance,” says Mike. “In order to make the whole thing work smoothly with the hardware we’ve got, resolution is backed off a wee bit to retain real time. In most places on the site angles of view are tight and the depth of field comparatively shallow in the internal spaces, so there’s no appreciable loss of image quality and we have everyone moving in real time.”

CONCLUSION Clearwater says the security solution at New Zealand War Memorial is absolutely fit for purpose

WITH THIS SYSTEM WE DON’T MISS MUCH. WE CAN SEE ANY MEDICAL EMERGENCIES, AND NOBODY CAN BREAK IN WITHOUT DETECTION.

– it ensures the security of all the exhibits and weapons 24 x 7, as well as ensuring the security and safety of staff and visitors during operating hours. “The system Circuit Systems built for us serves our purpose very well,” he says. “Part of our imperative is that we are run by a trust as a business, so we try to maximise return on investment. To that end, this system is designed to stand alone when there are no operators in the control room. As a result, it needed to perform well at all times and in all conditions. “This was a difficult application - the challenges were continual change through a plan that contained the expectation of evolution. There were many long hours spent putting The Great War Exhibition and its supporting systems together – the various teams worked through the night at times but what we have created here, everyone is exceptionally proud of. “Operationally, there’s the capability for an operator to be provided high resolution footage and see exactly what they are looking for - being IPbased the system is future-proof, a quality we have taken advantage of already. Overall, I would say the system meets all our needs currently and will continue to do so into the future.” n

FEATURES INCLUDE: l

Hikvision PTZ, mini PTZ, dome and IR dome cameras

Hikvision NVRs in remote locations

Milestone XProtect Corporate VMS

Gallagher access control and intrusion detection system

Gallagher Command Centre software

Multiple reed, glassbreak, AIRs, volumetric sensors.

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1/3/18 10:35 am

● Special report

High Security

DEFENDING HIGH SECURITY APPLICATIONS One of the greatest challenges for any consultant, integrator or security manager is defending high security applications, particularly locations which are not purpose built or that must retain areas that face the public.

HEN you think high security applications, the first things that come to mind are the concrete domes of nuclear power stations, the razor tape of prison fences and the complex manned entry points of defence installations. But many high security facilities cannot be virtual bunkers – they have operational parameters more nuanced than that. According to Danny Bercovic, managing director of Fredon Security, key considerations for end users and integrators defending high security applications are complex. “High security installations need to be extremely reliable, pervasive and yet simple to operate,” says Bercovic. “Responders need to take every event seriously and therefore any spurious event reports or alarm triggers need to be eliminated. To achieve this the quality of the installation must be high and the system must be designed with maintenance in mind.

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BY J O H N A D A M S

“Redundancy, both hardware and software, is crucial for high-security sites and should be designed in from inception. Efficiencies can be found when designing redundancy not just for security systems but also for their supporting infrastructure.” In Bercovic’s opinion, if there could be only one layer of security applied to defend a high security site, it would be perimeter security, but he points out that any missing layer would lead to compromised security. Bercovic argues the interplay between secure layers is a major contributor to overall site security. “The layers of security systems depend on each other to each perform properly,” he says. “For a solution to be complete it depends on multiple subsystems operating in unison. These sub-systems also depend on other building services such as electrical and – sometimes – data networks. It is important to have a holistic design that increases interoperability but also removes any unnecessary duplication of functionality. “An holistic multi-services design is important to ensure a solution operates efficiently and without unnecessary complexity. Security should not be designed – or implemented – in isolation from other building services. There is an interdependency that is too often underestimated. “A solution that includes best-of-breed subsystems tied into a unified user interface with a PSIM is a good high-security solution. The advantage of a PSIM is it can integrate systems that are not traditionally considered part of a traditional ‘security’ solution – such as UPS, electrical, RTLS and others.” According to Bercovic, complex design and duplication of sub-system functionality creates a maintenance nightmare. “It results in an architecture that cannot be understood without a detailed knowledge of every sub-system,” he says. “This impedes diagnosis during an event - as too much knowledge resides in multiple people’s heads. These people may not be available when you need them most and that can negatively affect crucial decision making.” When it comes to whether or not high security sites should have onsite security officers, Bercovic argues it is possible for a security solution to be managed by regular staff, however, he says consideration needs to be given to qualified first responders who may need to be security professionals – the choice depends on the nature of the site. According to Bercovic, integration can be a doubled-edged sword on high security sites. “Integration is a very effective way of providing a simple interface to operate a complex system,” he says. “In the event of a security breach, simple and accurate communication is key to judging a response and this is where integration can help. However, it often brings challenges when it comes to maintenance and upgrades.

IN THE EVENT OF A SECURITY BREACH, SIMPLE AND ACCURATE COMMUNICATION IS KEY TO JUDGING A RESPONSE AND THIS IS WHERE INTEGRATION CAN HELP.

“Security management systems are increasingly important in bringing disparate sub-systems into a single interface and adding some additional functionality along the way. Staff can also move between sites and remain competent in operating systems even though the sub-systems may be entirely different. “It should be mentioned that some manufacturers are developing impressive end-to-end capability that don’t require a security management layer – but this depends on the customer being willing to run with a single vendor for a breadth of functionality. High security sites are more likely to choose specific expert sub-systems that are best suited and then use a management system to tie them all together.” Given reductions in the cost of many security technologies, can a site be secured to a high level at relatively low cost, in Bercovic’s opinion? “Yes, but you get what you pay for,” he explains. “Lower cost technologies play an increasing role in the security landscape and need to be assessed by any integrator to judge fitness for purpose. In some cases, they represent excellent value for money. However, on some high security sites, the proven performance and integrity of mature systems is rightly valued. When talking about value, it is also especially important to consider total lifecycle costs – especially for high security sites where it may be difficult to replace or upgrade systems without affecting operations.” Bercovic believes the security networks of high security sites can have connections to internal and/ or public data networks. “Yes - provided appropriate cyber security measures are taken,” he says. “This can reduce risk, as IT teams are often spending great effort securing and maintaining a data network. These networks also have greater intrusion detection and redundancy built into them. This can be neglected in an orphaned, air-gapped security network, and vulnerabilities can be exploited over time. Also, disconnected networks are not necessarily protected from internal attacks.” For Luke Percy-Dove of Matryx Consulting, when defending high security applications end users should focus on addressing the risks to the business. “Risk does not just relate to loss of property but can also include things like business disruption and reputational damage,” he says. “If the risks are not entirely clear or have not been properly qualified, then the security practices may not be appropriate. Once the question of risk has been addressed, then security should also consider the profile of the client, the amenity of the property and how any systems, technologies or processes can be integrated into the work environment. Cost will also be a consideration.” Like Bercovic, Percy Dove argues security layers are intertwined. “Firstly, layers need to be complimentary and often will become more complex the closer you

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● Special report

High Security

get to the primary asset,” he says. “An example of this is you may need just a key to get into a building but to open a vault within that building may require 2 people, both with alarm codes and appropriate access credentials. In terms of what layer would be most important, well that would be whatever layer 1 is. This is because the first layer provides the first opportunity to detect an irregular event. “This could be a recessed reed switch on an entry door, an access reader to a computer hall or a perimeter beam. The first layer needs to provide a notification that something unusual has occurred. The earlier the event has been identified, the greater the chance of a meaningful response. Security is very much about creating time. As such, the further the first layer can be from the actual asset, the better the chance that security can influence the event. Security layers do not necessarily need to be complex or high-tech. Basic vehicle gates have worked very well at client properties as a way of restricting access and prolonging the time on site for offenders.” According to Percy-Dove, the perfect high security solution regardless of cost is not about the inclusion of every possible layer of security but about meeting the operational demand. “A perfect security solution is one that appropriately addresses the risks to the business - it really is as simple as that,” he says. “But thinking broadly, a well-designed system would likely include a fence that is very difficult to breach, some clever technologies to detect early intrusion should it occur and an elite security force that can respond immediately. The primary assets would also be very well secured inside a building that would be impossible to break into. The building itself would also incorporate multiple layers of control and opportunities for detection.” When it comes to the need for onsite security officers, Percy-Dove argues that risk defines need. “Without sounding too repetitive, it depends on the risk to the business and the quality of the systems and work practices in place,” he explains. “We do have some clients that operate high-security sites that are operated purely by regular staff, but this is uncommon, especially during operational hours. Once operations have ceased for the day and the main assets are appropriately secured, it is possible to not need security officers on site. If security officers were not being used, the security systems and processes would need to be very tight and include a timely response mechanism.” For Percy-Dove the most important layer of security to defend a high security site if there could only be one layer would be people. “An elite, armed security team,” he says. “Technology alone cannot achieve what people can in a high security environment. People are also required for response. so I would see it as the only option.” When it comes to integration and a shift towards single management solutions, Percy-Dove agrees

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A PERFECT SECURITY SOLUTION IS ONE THAT APPROPRIATELY ADDRESSES THE RISKS TO THE BUSINESS - IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

integration is becoming more and more important. “Integrated system may not include single management solutions because often the number of systems that are involved can be varied,” he says. “I understand that solutions like PSIM can address these issues, but their implementation can be complex and require careful consideration. Integration done well can provide all sorts of opportunities for improvement, so we are advocates if the benefits from an operational perspective are there and the costs can be justified. Like all things, whatever solution is recommended to a client needs to be outcome-driven. If integration is the best way of achieving a given outcome, then absolutely do it.” Percy-Dove argues it is possible, given the reductions in the cost of many security technologies, for a site to be secured to a high level at relatively low cost. “Absolutely it can - high security in no way needs to mean high-level expenditure on security for the client,” he says. “There are many ways that security can be achieved without the need for expensive security solutions. The single biggest factor in security costs will always be people so if ongoing costs are a factor, we would look at ways that technology-based solutions can achieve a comparable result. Many traditional control room functions can be automated or managed remotely with the right technologies. Modern communications allow us to manage almost any site from anywhere and we will see more and more centralisation of security operations.” When it comes to connecting high security solutions to internal and/or public data networks, Percy-Dove believes security networks need to be air-gapped where ever possible. “If they are not, then there will be a whole series of new risks and vulnerabilities that would need to be considered,” he says. “I am a believer in limiting risk wherever practical so while this approach may be seen as old school, cyber risk is greatly reduced managing security this way. There would have to be a good reason to connect to an internal or public network for us to endorse it.” n

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MORE THAN A COLLECTION OF BRANDS MORE THAN A COLLECTION OF BRANDS MORE THAN A COLLECTION OF BRANDS

AN ARA PRODUCTS COMPANY AN ARA PRODUCTS COMPANY AN ARA PRODUCTS COMPANY

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1300 111 010 1300 111 1300 111 010 010 www.iscs.com.au www.iscs.com.au www.iscs.com.au

27/2/18 11:58 am

● News report

Hills

HILLS UNVEILS DIGITAL FUTURE Hills has unveiled its digital future, is transitioning customers to a powerful new eCommerce site and has brought distribution inhouse as part of a move to streamline the business and improve customer experience.

ILLS has been undergoing its biggest and most important transition over the past 18 months – make no mistake, this intensification of focus is a bigger deal for the company than all previous efforts over the past 10 years. What Hills is in the process of achieving is nothing less than the task it set itself long ago – to integrate back-end functions, streamline resources, centralise quality tech support, create a brilliant eCommerce portal and back all this potential with a turbo-charged delivery mechanism. While such a plan is easy enough to construct, it requires teamwide commitment and considerable force of will from management to hammer the bluff outlines of an historical form into a sleek, modern shape. According to Hills’ MD and CEO David Lenz, the heart of the digital transition is a new website, around which multiple aspects of the business will

Distribution is the beating heart of eCommerce…

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BY J O H N A D A M S

gather – that includes dissemination of information, marketing, sales, technical support and plenty more. “While this project has been a very long time in the making, it really kicked off in November 2016 when we began scoping for a new website design,” says Lenz, with characteristic directness. “We began production on the website in June last year. We’ve taken our time to ensure we got this right. There was a lot of input from customers – installers, integrators, end users, vendors – they were all part of the development. And as part of the process, we tested the site’s functionality with a handful of customers in Australia and customers in New Zealand before undertaking the full launch.” I got an early look at the company’s new ecommerce portal out at Hills’ Lidcombe office a couple of weeks ago. The version of the site in my demonstration was a sandbox presentation (the site now is live), it had a greater part of the eventual functionality complete, being capable of taking live orders and residing in an environment where evolving enhancements could be polished into the finished product. Something that was evident as soon as I stepped into the room was the sense of confidence and excitement around this project – Hills’ people aren’t delivering a business solution so much as embarking on a journey with their digital transition. In the past, Hills’ online presence has had a rather stodgy corporate focus, but this new site is an operational animal through and through, designed to perform multiple functions with maximum intuition. And the depth of this functionality is what’s central. The website’s capacity for hard work is so profound and so lateral that as the development team peeled away its layers I began to feel the entire concept had a sort of gravity, drawing the whole Hills’ business in. Pushing the digital transformation hard, Lenz retains that rare quality in a senior corporate officer of painful honesty in the face of past failings. When you have a reputation for looking ugly stuff in the eye, it lends weight to your positive observations. “When it came to the website, we decided if we were going to do it, we would do it properly and we have,” he says. “We looked at a lot of other sites across banking and retail as part of the decision-making process – we wanted our site to last, to evolve, with everything in API format so it could be moved and changed. The site has a modern architecture and lives in the cloud. From the point of view of users, there’s no need to download an app – it runs on any platform with maximum efficiency. “In support of the digital transformation we have also brought distribution in house and moved our distribution centre across to Seven Hills – it’s centralised and customer service is sped up - our new digital platform will leverage off that. At Seven Hills we’ve created what is really a super centre and we’ve used our best solutions – Genetec, UTC and Axis among others – to create an integrated security

solution that is the backbone of our showroom. Seven Hills is our template for the future – we will implement the same sorts of facilities all around the country.”

TEST DRIVING THE SITE The front end of the site is an e-commerce platform that allows customers to see what products are available from where and to process purchasing transactions, see 24/7 real-time inventory, administer accounts, as well as raising queries and receiving response from the Hills’ team. But more than this, there’s a ton of information integrated into the site – articles, white papers, case studies, technical pieces, user manuals from suppliers. As we trawl through the interface what strikes me most is the potential of the thing. When fully actualised, this site will be as much about community as commerce. As Rohit Agarwal, senior business analyst from Cognizant explains before my demo, the

THE SITE HAS A MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND LIVES IN THE CLOUD. FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF USERS, THERE’S NO NEED TO DOWNLOAD AN APP – IT RUNS ON ANY PLATFORM WITH MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY.

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● News report

Hills

development team was still in the process of updating layers of content to fully flesh out the database of product but having spent considerable time on the live site since, it’s clear my first impressions were valid. We start out on the home page, which is what all visitors see when they arrive at the site. Along the top line are drop down menus entitled Products, Solutions, Resources and About Us. There’s a mega menu in the dropdown tab under Products. This menu highlights core groups of products – not by division but by category - grouped as Security, AV, Comms and Home DIY. According to Lenz, this was something customers had long requested. If you click on one of these headers, a detailed product listing appears, click on a product – say IP cameras – and all the possible options appear in the column to the right. Click on bullet cameras, and you’re taken to all possible options. As you navigate the site you find there are multiple ways to find products and solutions – you might click on a product drop-down or a vertical market – banking, finance, government, health, retail, stadiums - or a brand, or go into search – it’s almost impossible not to find what you are looking for and at all times you are likely to learn something

you did not know before. Search is neat – you can search by category or by product and filter by price and specific features. A customer can also enter a SKU number and go direct to a product. A key part of the home page under the top banner is space to give Hills suppliers an opportunity to promote new products – this takes the form of a slider, with suppliers able to book space to highlight their latest releases to Hills customers and visitors. At the moment Axis, Genetec, Ruckus and SonicWall are sharing the space. Underneath is an area that promotes exclusive deals (you have to be registered and logged in to see deals and prices), and below this, partner business assistance. Next, there are special product promotions, then maps showing nearest branches and finally a detailed site layout in the unlikely case you couldn’t find what you wanted above. Something Lenz points out is that many distributors only allow access to product information to registered customers, but he says Hills will not do things that way. Instead, anyone will be able to see the product (but not the trade price or SOH information) and to view its specifications, download any information and request contact for more information or support – it’s a different approach, he says. “Some feedback we got was that users would search the site, find we sold a solution, click on a link and be taken to a third-party site that denied them the information they needed for their research,” Lenz says. “With our new site, if you’re a government department and want to know about the latest Axis cameras, you can find out about them and if you like what you discover, we can also redirect your enquiry exactly where it needs to go.” Next, Rohit runs through the Solutions dropdown, which highlights the end-to-end solutions capabilities across a wide range of industries including banking, finance, government, health, retail, stadiums and more, then points out the partner programme section, which tells potential customers what training they need to undertake to access restricted product ranges. “Something that’s neat is that when you are looking at products to buy you can see all details, specifications, as well as the price, right down to how many units are available at each Hills’ location,” Rohit says. “In the cart you can select delivery options, delivery addresses, or pickup options. There’s a profile section that allow editing and the addition of license information that allows access to restricted products. Here, I can update my delivery address, go to account payments, view open invoices, select invoices and pay using a credit card. Customers can see what is outstanding and there are multiple authorised roles with different capabilities – this latter came from customers who want some staff to be able to order, others to be able to pay.” Information is going to be a key element of the site. “The resources section will include all

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WITH OUR NEW SITE, IF YOU’RE A GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT AND WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE LATEST AXIS CAMERAS, YOU CAN FIND OUT ABOUT THEM AND IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU DISCOVER WE CAN ALSO REDIRECT YOUR ENQUIRY EXACTLY WHERE IT NEEDS TO GO. the information about every product, all its specifications,” Lenz says. “We will also have a supplier portal in future that allows suppliers to funnel content straight onto our system – that’s been a bottleneck – soon we’ll just be approving content uploaded by suppliers and it will go straight onto our site. A lot of the big suppliers want this sort of electronic handshake – they don’t want to be dealing with sending images and then you’re loading them one at a time – now they will be in control. It will also allow us to set standards on things like image quality. “We will not be stopping here – the site will evolve,” Lenz says. “There will be support tickets, warranty and order memory – those are things we are working on. We could have done a generic site but wanted a solution that will expand and grow with our customers and suppliers. It’s next generation – we think customers who use it will be surprised how enriched it is – it’s not just a product website. This changes the image of Hills online – we have been a corporate entity – that information is still there but it does not define us. We are a solutions provider. “The feedback from staff – they were surprised – it was a lot more upmarket than they realised. Vendors are very excited about it, too. They see the site as offering another way to promote their newest products. And just the general experience on a mobile platform – it’s very slick. We really wanted a clean mobile platform. For us this is a transformational time. Having customers being involved, getting a sense of what pleases our customers has been instructive. It’s been a project ever since I joined the company – now people are saying; ‘At last! This is fantastic! Not just a functioning site but a great site’! “And we keep reminding people we are also live in NZ – they are very excited about that change over there – the excitement is across the company,” Lenz says. “Having this repository of information and support with its automated functions is going to free Hills people and our customers up from a lot of tasks they have been doing manually. “We really feel it’s out with old, and in with the new. The road we have been on as a company has not been the easiest but getting our distribution inhouse, getting the website done well, getting the Seven Hills distribution centre up and running with the integrated security solution we’ve built, having sales and technical support combined, 86 carparks, customer service and tech support side by side, the mechanisms for freeing up the team and improving

its productivity – these are all really big changes we think will have huge impact.”

CONCLUSION From an observer’s point of view, the Hills website is very slick, considering the huge amount of functionality baked into it. And despite the layers of functionality, navigation never gets unwieldy. This balance is very hard to find. After the demo I spend a lot time on the live site by myself, prying into almost every nook and cranny – it’s immediately and always clear that users will never have to drill too far in to find what they need, make a purchase or get support. Important, too, the site is a SAS solution and lives on AWS cloud to ensure performance is fast and consistent – and I can also confirm that it looks good on mobile devices – functionality is retained, and the visual experience is pleasing. In a very real sense this new Hills’ website is an umbilical cord between the company and its customers. It melds a commercial system supported by gateways that ensure orders are tracked, with a product information system supported by a high standard of documentation, and a whole lot more besides. Hills has a big range and this site manages to present that range in a way that is at once informative, appealing and open to evolution. Lenz is correct when he stitches Hills’ new distribution centre into the beating heart of the company’s digital transformation. I took a tour of the site – stand by for that story shortly – and it’s an impressive operation. At its heart is the maxim that every order received by 4pm that day should ship that day. For installers used to waiting a week for deliveries, such lightning quick response times for purchases made on Hills’ powerful new website are going to be seriously appealing. n

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● Product review

BGWT

THE MAGIC OF S2 There have been plenty of changes since we last took a look at the S2 web-based access control, intrusion, automation and video surveillance solution – key changes include the upgrades to the web interface, the release and enhancement of Magic Monitor and the release of monitoring and admin tool, Cumulus. TEERING me through the upgrades on BGWT’s new demo application is S2 branch manager NSW/ACT, Graham Clark, who has been supporting S2 for many years and has a strong handle on the system’s applicability. Just looking at the monitors in the demo room is instructive – this solution has matured over the years – it’s not simply more polished but it leans heavily towards situational awareness. Driving the system is also much more intuitive. Before we look at the software, it’s important to get a sense of the underlying nature of the hardware, which supports access control, alarms, automation and video surveillance. It’s modular, plug and play, and is designed to function locally, regionally and globally. S2 controllers have embedded servers running Linux and you browse into them securely via any browser – there are no layers of on-site software, databases and server hardware required. This modular web-based design makes an S2 solution endlessly expandable vertically and laterally from a local application to a global application linking multiple systems from anywhere. The scalability and online nature of the product allows you to manage the security system

BY J O H N A D A M S

from a mobile device you pull out of your pocket. “One of the great advantages of S2 over traditional access control solutions is that it can adapt to many different types of installations and can be deployed easily,” Clark explains. “With traditional access systems there are controllers, door panels, software, databases and server hardware required – if the system needs to include surveillance, then an NVR will be installed to support them also. What S2 does is integrated security, so on small sites with 4 doors and 4 cameras, the cameras are integrated into the same box as the access control so there is only one box on a wall and no complex integrations – it’s great for small sites. “For instance, the S2 Quatro handles access, alarms and CCTV–up to 8 cameras and 8 doors. Once you go above that you get into the NetBoxVR, which brings access control management up to 32 portals and provides camera recording for 16ch in a single box. For sites larger than 32 portals, you move to the extreme or enterprise range of controllers which are available as a physical box or a virtual image that can be hosted in a network room or data centre. The largest systems can also be catered for with S2 Global, in this situation you can have multiple controllers in regional locations connected back to a centralised Global controller. This allows you to minimise hardware at the remote sites while managing users, alarms and sites centrally. “Managing a system in this way has administrative and security related benefits – if you need to remove an employee from the database you just log into a single site and remove them, and they are removed across all sites quickly.” There are also a range of third party products that are compatible with the S2 system. These range from Mercury hardware support, VMS integration

ONE OF THE GREAT ADVANTAGES OF S2 OVER TRADITIONAL ACCESS CONTROL SOLUTIONS IS THAT IT CAN ADAPT TO MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF INSTALLATIONS.

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such as Milestone, and also integration of Allegion’s wireless locks which are configured by Bluetooth and report to S2 via an IP hub.

MAGIC MONITOR AND CUMULUS According to Clark a lot of development has gone into Magic Monitor, which is now in its 6th revision and there’s a key new management tool released, a cloud management tool called Cumulus. Magic Monitor is designed to facilitate dynamic display of key security and safety information anywhere in an enterprise. With each Magic Monitor instance being individually controlled, Magic Monitor can support a single display or combine multiple instances into a video wall that not only displays cameras but access and 3rd party information. As well as a video client, you can also use Magic Monitor to support multiple channels of digital content delivering situational awareness. This may include images from key cameras, signage, RSS and twitter feeds, TV and video presentations. There are standard widgets for time zone clocks, traffic, weather and news feeds that are built in. It’s possible to share Magic Monitor content with other Magic Monitors in real time also, whether on command or when triggered by S2 NetBox events and alarms. “Magic Monitor is much more than a security tool and can be used in many applications” Clark explains. “From traditional security monitoring where the operator manages access control and CCTV, through to dynamic signage and event notification in public areas. An interesting fact about Magic Monitor is that it is used differently by every end user. “Such applications include forward facing foyers, with video or signage displays - all Magic Monitors are addressable, so you can display content relevant to the location, and then in the event of an emergency have all the monitors react to the event and show evacuation or lock down notices,” he explains. “Further control of the system can be achieved by leveraging S2’s Threat Level app. “For instance, if you have a situation that requires you to change the behaviour of the system, authorised users can activate the threat level via an app on their phone which will in turn change the way the system behaves. It may be a simple outcome – a VIP might arrive, and the Magic Monitor welcomes them. Or it might be more serious. In the event of a fire or security event, the manager can change the threat level, the system then removes contractor access or lock down areas of vulnerability. Anything in the system you can configure can be controlled using the Threat Level app in a pre-configured way. “Threat levels may not necessarily be security related – they may be an extreme weather event. In any case, it’s very powerful and allows you to preprogram the system to react to these events so they align with your operating procedures”.

BECAUSE S2 IS AN APPLIANCEBASED COMPANY IT’S EASY TO INTEGRATE THESE FUNCTIONALITIES – IT’S TURNKEY – YOU PLACE AN ORDER, YOU INSTALL IT IN THE RACK, YOU BROWSE INTO IT – IT’S THAT SIMPLE. Another key release from S2 is Cumulus, a cloudbased tool that allows integrators to monitor and administer S2 access control and CCTV systems from a single management dashboard. The way Cumulus works is that all S2 systems are assigned to the managing integrator’s portal and displays their real-time status. Important, too, Cumulus monitors the S2 system’s health by checking system performance data and applying configurable analytic rules to alert you of problems by text message or email. “Cumulus is a portal which gives an overview of an integrators connected systems,” Clark says. “In this case, we have our Magic Monitors and our branch demo systems connected. As well as keeping you informed of system status and health, all the available upgrades can be seen and integrators can download new software releases, check licenses etc to keep their customers up to date, you can also use categories to make the sites easier to manage. “Because S2 develops all of the products and add ons, it’s incredibly easy to integrate and in some cases automated,” explains Clark. “The system’s flexibility is the true strength of S2 and it scales enormously if you need it to. It starts locally, grows regionally, and then grows globally.” n

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â&#x2014;? Product review

Hikvision

HIKVISION DARKFIGHTER X PTZ FIRST IMPRESSIONS Hikvision Darkfighter X is a powerful IP66-rated PTZ camera designed specifically for strength in low light applications at close and long ranges. Its key feature is a 2-sensor design, one sensor for colour and another monochrome.

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BY J O H N A D A M S

HEN I pull the Darkfighter X out of its crate and install it on a heavy-duty dome camera pendant tripod, my first impressions are of its size and heft – this is a robust PTZ camera designed for serious work in external environments. The camera is constructed of aluminium alloy with some PVC components and has dimensions of 266.6mm wide x 437mm high with a weight of around 8kg. It’s designed for pendant mounting and while it can look above the horizon, it’s not able to look directly upwards as some base-mount PTZ units we’ve tested can. Features of Darkfighter X include 1080p 2MP resolution, day/night function with IR cut filter, ½.8-inch dual optical and IR CMOS sensors, integrated 200m IR array, 25x varifocal zoom lens with F1.5-F3.5 aperture and a 4.8-120mm range with autofocus, 16x digital zoom, -20 degrees to 90 degrees of tilt (Auto Flip), 120dB wide dynamic range, 1080p resolution, 200m of IR performance, IP66 rating, optical de-fog, smart detection functions; and H.265+, H.265, H.264+, H.264 and MJPEG compression options. Minimum scene illumination is 0.001lux at F1.5 in colour and 0.0001 lux at F1.5 in monochrome. There’s support for SD/ SDXC cards up to 256GB, optical de-fog and smart detection functions. There are 8 programmable privacy masks, there’s auto, semi-automatic and manual focus modes, zoom speed from wide to long of 4 seconds. Horizontal field of view is 58.2-3.2 degrees while vertical field of view is 32.7-1.8 degrees. Pan speed is 280 degrees per second and tilt speed is 250 degrees per second. There are 300 presets and 8 patrol scans with up to 32 presets for each patrol. There are 4 pattern scans with record time over 10 minutes for each scan. Video bitrate is adjustable from 32 kbps to 16384 kbps, audio compression options include G.711alaw, G.711ulaw, G.722.1, G.726, MP2L2 and PCM. Smart Features include smart detection, intrusion detection, line crossing detection, region entrance detection, region exiting detection, face detection, audio exception detection, smart tracking manual tracking, auto tracking, event tracking, smart record ANR (automatic network replenishment), Dual-VCA, ROI encoding of main stream, sub-stream and third stream and support for 8 fixed areas. Alarm actions included preset, patrol scan, pattern scan, memory card video record, trigger recording, notify surveillance centre, upload to FTP/memory card/NAS, send email, etc.

ACCORDING TO HIKVISION, DARKFIGHTER X TECHNOLOGY CAN PROVIDE COLOURFUL, SHARP IMAGES DOWN AT 0.001 LUX – THAT’S HALF STARLIGHT.

Wide lane view

About 20x zoom

The long end again...

And here’s the short end.

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Hikvision THE CAMERA TAKES INFORMATION FROM AN IR SENSOR (FOR BRIGHTNESS) AND A VISIBLE LIGHT SENSOR (COLOUR) AND COMBINES THEM TO PROVIDE A BRIGHT IMAGE IN FULL COLOUR WITHOUT BLUR OR EXTREMES OF NOISE.

Width district

Protocols supported include IPv4/IPv6, HTTP, HTTPS, 802.1x, Qos, FTP, SMTP, UPnP, SNMP, DNS, DDNS, NTP, RTSP, RTCP, RTP, TCP/IP, DHCP, PPPoE and Bonjour. The camera is API open-ended, supports ONVIF and CGI, as well as the Hikvision SDK and 3rd party SDKs. It’s possible to live view on 20 channels with support for 32 users. Security measures include user authentication (ID and PW), host authentication (MAC address); HTTPS encryption; IEEE 802.1x port-based network access control; and IP address filtering. The camera has a maximum draw of 68W at 24V AC (full power on IR array), or 50W on Hi-POE. Working temperature is very good for a camera of this type – it’s -40 to 65C. The housing is IP66 rated against weather and dust and IK10 rated against vandalism, discounting the wiper. There’s TVS 6000V Lightning protection, surge protection and voltage transient protection.

20x zoom on chimney

DARKFIGHTER X TECHNOLOGY

Here’s 25 x 200m on building behind

Darkfighter X is available in 2 form factors a bullet and this PTZ – the camera engines in both are identical and performance should be virtually the same, taking into account any variations in dome bubble or front element. Just what is Darkfighter-X technology? According to Hikvision, it’s a technology that delivers the best possible colour images in low light by employing techniques similar to those used by human eyes, which employ different groups of cells to collect signals generated by the reflections of colour and brightness from surfaces in the scene which are then merged in the brain to create an enhanced composite image. In the case of Darkfighter X technology, the camera takes information from an IR sensor (for brightness) and a visible light sensor (colour) and combines them to provide a bright image in full colour without blur or extremes of noise. According to Hikvision, Darkfighter X technology can provide colourful, sharp images down at 0.001 lux – that’s half starlight. There’s obviously some work going on in the processor to manage this so it will be instructive to pay attention to latency and motion blur. While Hikvision’s specifications describe Darkfighter X has having dual CMOS sensors – one for colour and one for IR, I can’t see the sensors in this enclosed PTZ. It’s hard to imagine how a dual sensor camera engine could be laid out.

Motion blur is handled well – this car is at 70m, zoom at 20x

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Hikvision TEST DRIVING DARKFIGHTER X PTZ

Colour in lane mid zoom

IR in lane

Colour at 20x

IR at 22x

Our test bed is the usual i7-powered Dell Optiplex 9020 with AMD Radeon GPU (8GB). The camera is powered by PoE+ transformer and arrives at the Netgear ProSafe GS108P switch via a second data cable. Monitors used in this assessment are from HP and BENQ. We have a Panasonic dome and a Hikvision turret being tested on the network at the same time. Bear in mind that this camera is designed to shine brightest in the lowest light and I’m undertaking my first test drive in daylight with considerable backlight – the idea is to get a sense of the optical quality of the camera and to assess the performance of the camera engine in daylight conditions. Something else to point out is that a southerly change has come through and most the time I’m testing Darkfighter X the wind is gusty between the towers – on the monitors the image rocks back and forth – it’s because of my mounting to the big tripod. I’m reluctant to tighten the grub screws on the tripod too tightly for fear of burring the threads on the pendant mount. What this means is that there was some movement in the camera as I took almost all these snapshots. My first impressions of the camera during the day in largely default settings (WDR is activated) are relatively low contrast with natural colour tones, excellent sharpness, superb optical quality – there’s limited barrel distortions, no chromatic aberrations, almost no flare or ghosting. This camera delivers an excellent chase of the zoom function by the autofocus - a vital quality for operators working in real time. The angle of view of Darkfighter X is relatively long at the wide end and the reach at the long end is up with the very best. There’s virtually no noise, there are almost no discernible digital rebuild artefacts – this is a superior camera engine to anything I’ve seen from Hikvision – we’ve not conducted a full review of a Hikvision camera for more than a year and the improvement in quality is marked. Latency is very low and in good light there’s no evidence of stepping or motion blur. Viewing district scenes at longer zoom lengths highlights the optical excellence of Darkfighter X – there are no CAs along foreground powerlines. At Security 2017 in Sydney, Hikvision pointed out that every single tile in the colour pallet of its Darkfighter X demo was well defined and distinctly different in tone from its neighbours. When I reported on that demo last year, I noted that the older Darkfighter technology seemed to be making generalisations of colour which robbed scenes of detail in the real world. Pointing Darkfighter X over the district scene those observations were brought home. Colour tones are very natural and there’s none of the exaggerated saturation you sometimes see. The subtle colour variations in the chimney

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THERE’S VIRTUALLY NO NOISE, THERE’S ALMOST NO DISCERNIBLE DIGITAL REBUILD ARTEFACTS – THIS IS A SUPERIOR CAMERA ENGINE TO ANYTHING I’VE SEEN FROM HIKVISION...

pots are almost exactly as they appear to the naked eye. I find the performance to be equally strong zoomed into tight street scenes. The level of detail is high from edge to edge and there’s very little motion blur in good light. In one alley scene as I snare a snapshot of a pedestrian walking down the lane, a ball of paper tumbles by in mid-air - I can see the shadow underneath it. Wide scenes on this quite glary overcast day can see colours a little muted as the processing engine keeps highlights under control. When you zoom into areas with consistent brightness, the image becomes lighter, even though aperture is closing down toward F3.5. Zoom is a real strength during the day and later I find it’s excellent at night, too. I spend a deal of time zooming in on key buildings throughout my scene – the World Tower first, then a high rise down the hill. The imagery I get from these views is extremely good, with excellent levels of detail suggesting strong sharpness. I said earlier the camera is low contrast and while I think this is so, there’s a lot of subtle contrast in the images. I try for Sydney Tower at 2000m but in this application it’s under the horizon viewed from my lower than usual tripod mounting point. Viewing scenes with variable lighting under zoom highlights the camera’s capability. It does well at finding a balance between bright and dark when both conditions are present in significant areas of a scene. WDR performance is excellent, too. Even

in the presence of very strong backlight I’m able to get good detail. Bright points are rendered as stars and I find the camera deals with reflections very well – I can see through car windscreens and view occupants. A great quality of PTZ cameras is their ability to maximise their resolution at the long end. As the angle of view gets under 10 degrees the concentration of pixels amplifies detail. Compression is also enhanced, which is ideal for narrow, long spaces. A key characteristic – motion blur – is very well controlled in good light. The camera handles moving objects heading towards or away from it better than it does those moving at right angles, but performance of the latter is still solid. I easily get plates coming up and down the lane at speeds up to 25kmph, pedestrians moving around, joggers – all show no signs of blurring and this performance continues as light fades. As the afternoon heads into evening, colour tones start to warm but the colour image stays strong and sharp until around 8pm when it begins to yield up some processing noise. This slight noise doesn’t increase over a 30-minute period into full dark – that’s sub-2 lux at the lens. I find I can still get moving faces in colour at night, too. Driving Darkfighter X in colour at night out over the back lane is an unusual experience. The camera manages amplification so well, contriving to make dark scenes bright and colourful, that I go out the back and climb on my step ladder to check if there’s

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a white light array. Part of the reason I do this is because of the way the camera looks on screen as I move around the dark scene. When I shift to a new angle of view the image brightens intensely in a way that is not always uniform, before settling to an even colour, almost as if a lamp has been activated and its output is being adjusted in software to get the best performance. Something else I notice while all this is going on, autofocus handles the dark conditions surprisingly well. I find myself shaking my head over Darkfighter X’s night performance in colour. The sky is blue, the trees are green, the tiles are red. No, it’s not an image devoid of noise or latency – the camera is working hard to build this image stream – but it’s impressive nonetheless. I go outside multiple

Colour district in full dark

Mid-zoom

Full zoom

times just to be sure it really is full dark. That colour image of chimney pots 40 metres from the lens you see bottom left – I could not see those chimney pots at all. And Darkfighter X sees past the chimney pots to the mortar lines in the building behind. Outstanding. When I aim the camera at that building, after a brief period of latency – maybe 350th of a second – the image intensifies into layers of colour, reflections from windows and blue sky. When I zoom in on the top of a building at about 100m I get very strong detail in colour. There’s some processing noise but it’s impressive unassisted performance from Darkfighter X. After I take this shot I pull back and get the wide view – there’s blue sky and clouds. I go out and check the horizon again and it’s dark. While I’m in colour, I swing the camera around to get a look at World Tower at 1000m on full zoom. It’s another strong image with some colour and excellent management of blooming from the sensor. Before I switch over to night mode, I grab an image of the frangipani blossoms across the lane in colour and note I have face recognition of a neighbour outside their garage. Then I zoom the camera into the end of the lane – about 70m from the lens and force it into night mode. Immediately, the IR array fires up, shifting from strong to intense, then backing off a touch as the camera adjusts to the focal length. This IR array is powerful. I can’t help feeling I must be blinding pedestrians and drivers with it but when I check the fascia of the camera there’s just the usual soft red glow from the array. A vehicle parks at the end of the lane and I have strong detail with excellent contrast. A couple of pedestrians come up the lane – they are walking away from me but I get excellent detail of tattoos and clothing. There is some processing shimmer but there’s not the tell-tale dragging blur of a bottomed-out shutter speed. At closer ranges the IR performance eases off – there’s still loads of detail, the same processing shimmer but with typical movements I have excellent face recognition and good control of IR flare, which gets better away from the centre of the image. As Hikvision explains things, when it comes to monochrome night performance, Darkfighter X fires up its second IR sensor supported by Smart IR functionality. How good is it? Certainly, the low light performance in colour was already very good, particularly at the long end. In night mode, the Smart IR function combined with the new dual sensor design is something else again. Images on page 50 tell the story best. I snap a shot of the chimney pots at 40m with light at the lens sub-1 lux. The image is sharp, the contrast is flinty and there’s loads of detail thanks to the ability to discern variations in tone. Whenever I zoom in, detail increases with no sign of amplification noise. Next, I take a look at the top of the building at

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WT at 1000m day...

I SNAP A SHOT OF THE CHIMNEY POTS AT 40M WITH LIGHT AT THE LENS SUB-1 LUX. THE IMAGE IS SHARP, THE CONTRAST IS FLINTY AND THERE’S LOADS OF DETAIL THANKS TO THE ABILITY TO DISCERN VARIATIONS IN TONE.

x ...and night. Blooming control excellent.

and noise in areas of complete darkness. When testing this camera, I found a strong dislocation between what was on the monitor and what was going on in front of the lens. Night mode with IR activated is the camera’s forte. IR is powerful but well controlled and the camera has the ability to dig deep into dark scenes with a minimum of IR flare and motion blur. Well worth a look. n

about 100m and again, the detail is outstanding. I spin the camera towards a block of flats down the hill and the IR performance is very strong – this image really highlights the contrast capabilities of Darkfighter X. To finish up the night mode test I wait for a pedestrian to walk down the lane but instead I get a car doing about 25kmph at right angles to the lens. The quality of the snapshot is strong again – there’s some blur but this is a very difficult shot.

CONCLUSION Darkfighter X PTZ is a fine surveillance camera with excellent build quality and a solid specification. Optically, it’s excellent, showing almost none of the usual aberrations or distortions. There’s almost no flare or ghosting – I notice one very predictable , small rectangle mid-centre of the lens when looking into direct sunlight. WDR capability is excellent, too, and colour rendition is solid, though I found myself preferring the long end in 80,000 lux and I put this down to the WDR function darkening less bright areas of the image to avoid over exposure in wider views. This is a characteristic I have noticed before with Hikvision cameras. Reduction in aperture under zoom probably helps too. At all times, pan, tilt, zoom and most importantly, autofocus, are very well executed. The Hikvision X camera engine delivers colour images in sub-2 lux at the wide end of the lens at F1.5 as well as at the long end, when aperture is closed down to F3.5. It achieves this with some latency

FEATURES OF DARKFIGHTER X PTZ INCLUDE: l

Colour: 0.001lux/F1.5, B/W: 0.0001lux/F1.5

Dual optical and IR sensors 1/2.8” CMOS

25x varifocal zoom lens

2MP, 1080p resolution

IP66 rated bullet and PTZ

200m infrared

120dB wide dynamic range

Optical zoom:25x, focus:4.8-120mm

Supports SD/SDXC card up to 128GB

Optical de-fog

Smart detection functions

H.265+/H.265/H.264+/H.264/MJPEG

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Hungry like the Fox

People drone on about IoT but it’s always hard to imagine exactly how an internet of things could communicate – it’s tough enough to hold together an alarm and home automation solution comprised of a dozen devices and a few keypads. After a couple of years, half the system is without power and unless the installer stays on top of customer support, it gradually becomes a collection of dead electrical devices.

OW there might be an answer – Sigfox – a low power, low cost proprietary comms protocol that connects controllers and devices using parsimonious volumes of data over long distances with excellent resistance to noise. Making the technology more appealing, it’s low cost, has low connections fees, a high network capacity and the ability to be supported by any old

AA batteries for 5 years. Sigfox leverages the ISM radio band – in Australia, it’s 918 – 926MHz (433MHz is another possibility in Australia), which is smaller than US ISM, which sprawls from 902 – 929MHz. The 900MHz signals are narrow band, meaning they can pass through solid objects, have almost no current draw and employ single-hop star topology. Sigfox comms have been described as more whisper than shout – they are certainly very slender indeed. Sigfox supports 140 uplink messages per day, each carrying a meagre 12 byte payload, discounting transmission data – the entire frame is 26 bytes. Sigfox also offers 4 downlink messages a day – each with an 8 Byte payload. This sounds worse than it is. You can send numbers from 1 to 79 octillion using 12 bytes and complex positioning co-ordinates only require 4 bytes. This means sending instructions or transmitting from a list of events to alert to intrusion or an issue with a plant unit is never going to be an issue with Sigfox. And those skimpy signals, like the one ring to rule them all, confer unnatural long life. Depending on the application, it might up to 10 years – especially for simple data transmitters or sensors in low traffic areas. In some ways, Sigfox is an ideal security

device comms protocol – it’s lightweight, affordable, long range and secure by design. Network infrastructure is cheap, too You only need 1200 to cover a country as large as France and the low investment cost means the network is low cost – only $1 per year for customers with 50,000 devices or more. Neat, too, the actual Sigfox devices are very economical – the radios inside them only cost $1 and at that price, you can put them everywhere. Operating in the 200 kHz allotted to publicly exchange radio messages over the air, Sigfox messages are 100 Hz wide and are transferred at 100 or 600 bits per

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SOMETHING ELSE TO NOTE ABOUT SIGFOX IS THAT WHILE SIGNALS CAN BE TRANSPORTED BY IP NETWORKS, BECAUSE THEY USE A PROPRIETARY PROTOCOL, THEY ARE NOT INTERNET FACING IN THE USUAL WAY.

second, depending on location. Upload messages take around 2s to reach the base station monitoring the spectrum and a given device is never attached to a base station as cellular protocols are. Instead the message will be received by any base station that can hear it – typically about 3 in a metro environment. Something else to note about Sigfox is that while signals can be transported by IP networks, because they use a proprietary protocol, they are not Internet facing in the usual way. The way things work is that communication is received by multiple access stations, then delivered to the

Sigfox cloud via secure VPN. This VPN passes the message on to its destination – most likely an IoT application. What’s missing in all this? Yes, that’s right. The devices themselves have no IP addresses so can’t be addressed by hackers trying to break into them. While this doesn’t make them impervious to circuitous breaches, they are hard to reach, and they are also outside the scope of firewall rules, allowing them to get messages across the usual network barriers for IoT comms. Because Sigfox uses Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) that work in concert with hardware, it’s very easy for

manufacturers to integrate them into their products. Functionally, any device with integrated Sigfox hardware can connect to the internet in regions where a Sigfox network has been deployed without any external hardware, like a Wi-Fi or Zigbee router. But, in another sense, the Sigfox network is entirely different to traditional GSM networks, in that it can only transmit small amounts of data, at just 100 bits per second. The focus on low-power, low-bandwidth communications also makes the Sigfox network relatively easy to deploy. For instance, the company completed a nationwide deployment in Spain in only 10 months. And with a base station the size of a briefcase, the company can do multiple site installs in one day, sometimes on rooftops in major cities but also in less conventional places, like billboards. Because the network sends such low amounts of data, it can reach farther distances with fewer base stations. Sigfox’s network is designed as a collaborative network, which prevents base stations from recognizing each other after they’ve been deployed. This eliminates the need to reconfigure the network when deploying a new base station. Sigfox considers its market split into 3 categories. The first involves existing use cases, such as utilities, that could become more efficient or less expensive by integrating its low-power connectivity. The second is the kinds of devices that haven’t been connected before. A good example of this is Sigfox’s recent collaboration with French postal service La Poste, which involves attaching a small, internet-connected button to mailboxes that customers can press to alert La Poste when they have a package to send. The third market segment is when Sigfox’s technology can be complementary. For instance,a security camera company that used 3G to send its video feeds to security personnel, which became concerned over the availability of GSM signal jammers that could disrupt the video feed. By integrating Sigfox’s technology alongside the 3G networking technology, the device could fall back on the Sigfox network to send a low-power jam alert. n

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â&#x2014;? Regulars

The Interview

Open and Shut Case

In April 2017 Security Merchants closed its doors and 4 weeks later a completely new business called Consolidated Security Merchants opened in the same buildings with many of the same staff, most the same suppliers and almost all the same customers. Wayne Trethowan tells John Adams how it happened.

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WAY N E T R E T H O WA N W I T H J O H N A D A M S

OUR STRENGTH IS THAT WE AREN’T A BOX MOVER, BUT WE DO SYSTEMS DESIGN AND SUPPORT, AS WELL AS SUPPLY HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE. THE CSM TEAM GETS INVOLVED IN QUOTING AND DESIGNING AND SUPPORTING THE INTEGRATORS. Merchants Australia had closed. As a result, it’s been very hard work. When you buy a business as a going concern, all the distribution agreements are in place, the customers have a commercial relationship with you and everything is intact – the business systems, the relationships are complete. As a new business, we have had to go out and establish all the distribution agreements, sign up all our major vendors and all our installation customers. We’ve also had to source additional products to complete our range and take on business systems - we have a full blown commercial system which caters for CSM to establish the required growth. It means we are in a good place from the point of view of logistics, distribution and sales and technical support. But all these things were being put in place simultaneously and under an intense deadline. So, yes, we did it differently and that has been interesting. However, while much has changed, a lot is still the same if you compare Security Merchants and CSM. Security Merchants closed in April 2017 and we opened CSM in May 2017 based in the same locations, with most of the same staff, many of the same suppliers and almost all the same customers. It’s a lot easier to say that in a sentence than it was to make it happen in the real world, I can tell you. Q: Wayne, many in the industry see Consolidated Security Merchants as an evolution of the Security Merchants business which was formerly owned by ASSA ABLOY – they may also assume CSM acquired Security Merchants last year but that’s not how it happened at all, is it? A: No, that’s not the way it happened. CSM’s owners did not buy the Security Merchants business, we set up as a separate business after Security

Q: Could you tell us how CSM came to be? What led you to this point? A: I had been running the Security Merchants business for a year and felt there was strong potential to expand the business. To be honest, I was really enjoying Security Merchants – we had begun to gain some momentum across our brands and we had some excellent staff. To me it did not seem right to just pull the pin. I thought, alright, let’s

see what we can do here - I wanted to continue the business in much the same form. I had a conversation with Yossi Harel, formerly of iTech and Crow Australia, about getting involved with CSM and he loved the idea. The way we had met was that Security Merchants had a product called Avolution – it was a Crow product – and I wanted to be able to push Crow as a brand as it was better known. A mutual contact put us together to talk about that and later we talked about setting up CSM as well. Once we decided to do it, it was all about getting the work done, putting contracts in place. We wore out a lot of shoe leather. Q: A key aspect of setting up CSM would have been trying to retain as many of Security Merchants’ ex-staff as possible. What was involved in that process? A: Yes, we managed to employ a lot of Security Merchants’ ex-staff unfortunately it was not possible to hold onto all of them. After the decision to close Security Merchants Australia become known some staff very quickly moved to take available opportunities in the market, which is not surprising. Fortunately, we were able to move fast enough to ensure that we could employ many staff members for the new business. This was a process – we were starting from scratch across the board – that included new employment agreements. Q: How many staff do you have now and what is the national footprint? A: We have 35 staff across 5 branches and those numbers tell you the amount of effort that was required to get everything together so we could open the business shortly after Security Merchants closed its door. We now have 35 staff now

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The Interview

across 5 branches with demo space, tech support and commissioning areas in every state office. As well as the staff we retained, we needed to fill the roles of key personnel we had lost in the process. We now have product managers in every category – CCTV, access control, alarms, residential security and home automation. Not only do we have very good staff – we have worked to redistribute knowledge, which was strongest in

Victoria. Key technical roles have moved to Qld and NSW. This was very important for growth potential. It’s too hard to manage all the technical enquiries from interstate and have remote locations behaving as basic distribution centres – it just doesn’t work. Terry Corser heads up the team in Qld, George Knou in NSW, Peter De Ieso in Vic, Daniel Orr in SA as well as Tim Sharman in WA. Chris McGrath runs our technical

support and training side – there are training rooms in every branch. All our branches remain in the same location except for WA where we have just opened a new branch at Balcatta. Q: Tell us about the CSM product range – what have you retained and what new products do you carry? A: Our product range is extensive. We are a Key dealer for HID with card

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production facilities in NSW and Victoria. We are a Crow distributor, we are an exclusive distributor for DDS and for the AAP range. We are a major Honeywell distributor. We are also distributing Vesta in the professional home gateway security and home automation area. We have Wi-Fi intercom – we handle a lot of products like this, as well as peripherals. Something else that goes well for us is the Omgate product which opens doors or gates. It’s simple but has deep functionality. We are a major distributor of Honeywell products including products like their Vista alarm panel, Tuxedo home automation, Equip camera range and Galaxy Dimension which is integrated into our DDS platform. When it comes to CCTV, TVT is our cornerstone – we are the exclusive distributor in ANZ - it’s the third largest exporter of video surveillance equipment in China but not many people know about it. They manufacture thousands of cameras and NVRs every month. We’ve been to the factory and have seen the production line high level of quality control – they are heated, cooled, blasted in a water booth to check IP ratings. We also sell TVT kits under the TrueView brand. Our CCTV business is growing fast, and our customer base is very loyal to the brand – it’s also very cost effective, even when compared with other Chinese brands. TVT can manage up to 1000 NVR’s in a VMS solution with their NVMS 1000 and NVMS 5000 product. Q: You have particular depth in access control, don’t you? A: Yes, the new CSM business has accumulated an exciting range of access control solutions to compliment our intrusion and locking products. I should point out that we are still a premium ASSA Abloy distributor, but we needed more depth in access control. Since we opened we’ve added to the existing products with brands like DDS and AAP from NZ that covers all aspects of the access control and alarm

WHEN IT COMES TO CCTV, TVT IS OUR CORNERSTONE – WE ARE THE EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTOR IN ANZ - IT’S THE THIRD LARGEST EXPORTER OF VIDEO SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT IN CHINA BUT NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT IT.

market for us. We use Comelit for IP apartment intercoms and many other applications and we also distribute 2N and Bticino intercom systems as well. We sell a huge number of batteries, locks and sundries for security applications. The DDS solution combined with the Honeywell Galaxy Dimension system is a strong performer - it connects to many of the video management systems on the market. The integration between DDS and Galaxy dimension allows for a comprehensive TCP/IP access control and intrusion solution offering a clear alternative to security integrators looking for a feature rich costeffective solution.

and a cloud service via Amazon that is managed by CSM for the integrators on behalf of customers. There are now many clients using these types of systems. These professional systems cover up to a 2km wireless range, which gives us access to a full range of home automation – light switches, smoke sensors, on/off switches, thermostats, etc. There’s also Zigbee and Z-Wave solutions with capacity to connect to Amazon Alexa for voice control. With IR learning devices you can also control various components of your home theatre. We cover a lot of bases.

Q: The access control products seem to target quite different parts of the market – was that deliberate?

Q: There isn’t too much you want to add to the product range?

A: Yes - we go high end enterprise to mid-range with the DDS product range with our Elite SX product at the lower end. We sell a broad range of single, 2 door and 4-door controller to suit a broad range of application which are complimented by a good range of readers from HID and BQT. The DDS product also has a good time and attendance solution incorporated in it We also have a comprehensive range of readers including biometrics and high security readers. At the economy end is Arrowhead – that’s a 64 zone, 32 door alarm and access control solution – it can do 2 doors for a very low cost – it’s very competitive and made in NZ. We also cover cloud security/ automation solutions with wireless kits utilising home gateways from Vesta Australia and Yale which include a keypad, 2 PIR cameras, PIR, panic button and a couple of remotes, an app drives everything and allows camera views – Very cost effective to the trade

A: We are working on adding a VMS offering to our CCTV range – I can’t say much about it at the moment – that rounds out the range. Q: What would you like to say to security installers and integrators considering doing business with CSM? A: Our strength is that we aren’t a box mover, but we do systems design and support, as well as supply hardware and software. The CSM team gets involved in quoting and designing and supporting the integrators. Our model is to build a network of quality dealers trained in our solutions and to provide them complete solutions – including things like UPS, cabling and all the rest. We are different to larger distribution companies. We can control our destiny as we have our own range of products and decide which solutions will best support our customers. n

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Products

Editor’s choice FACE RECOGNITION – SENSTAR SYMPHONY 7

What’s new in the industry.

l ADD an additional layer of security to any video surveillance

BOSCH INTEGRATES SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS WITH GENETEC SYSTEMS

deployment with Face Recognition analytics. Face Recognition is ideally suited to securing facilities that require a stronger layer of protection for access control. Face Recognition is designed for real-world security applications, regardless of changes in camera viewpoint, expression, facial hair, glasses, or poor lighting conditions. Users can also protect property from repeat thieves through alert notifications. Features and benefits including the ability to identify known and unknown individuals for a variety of applications, create allow and deny lists, and be alerted when someone on that list is identified, save time and resources with a robust search functionality that lets users look for registered and unknown people in video, search across multiple cameras, and filter search results by match score or date and time, and apply 2-factor authentication processes for access control applications that require an added layer of security protection.

l BOSCH says its cameras are being fully integrated with Genetec systems, resulting in an end-to-end data security solution incorporating all Bosch network video surveillance cameras, plus Genetec Archiver and Security Center. Bosch is taking a proactive stance on cybersecurity due to the the rise of IoT devices and cybercrime. The result is this end-to-end data security solution. All network-wide communications between Bosch cameras and Genetec Archiver and Security Center are assigned an authentication key. This electronic signature enables the system to verify the legitimacy of network components like cameras or storage units, and viewing clients, ensuring that an infrastructure of trust is built before network-wide communications start. All Bosch IP-cameras have a built-in Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to safely store cryptographic keys used for authentication ensuring trustworthy communications between all network components and encryption of all video data, according to the company. All cryptographic operations, for authentication and encryption, are only executed inside the Trusted Platform Module .

Distributor: SensaTek Contact: 1300 560 026

NEW 64-ZONE XR900 WIRELESS CONTROL PANEL FROM AMC l AMC’S 64-zone XR900 is a new wireless control panel distributed by LSC Security Supplies. Designed and manufactured in Italy, the XR900 boasts a sleek, compact design with user friendly functionality. The XR900 utilises a 916Mhz bi-directional wireless system and is compatible with all existing AMC wireless and wired products, making it a versatile and flexible solution for any alarm installer. “We’ve had excellent feedback from local installers about the quality of AMC products,” said David Lorimer, LSC Security Supplies product manager. “The end-to-end, Italian-based production behind all AMC products has been cited by several customers as a key contributor to the durability and quality of their completed installations.” Like all AMC products, the XR900 can be managed using the AMC Manager app, available for both iOS and Android devices.

Distributor: Bosch Security Contact: 1300 1 BOSCH (26724)

CSD REPRESENTING TACTICAL POWER PRODUCTS l CSD is proud to represent the complete range of Tactical Power Products (TPP). TPP brings to the market Australian designed and manufactured ultra-quiet, high efficiency, switch mode power supplies and accessories. The accessories consist of power distribution modules (PDM), relays, power converters and timers. Due to the modular design of the power supplies and accessories, multiple variations can be supplied in 3 different sized, zinc plated steel enclosures. Tactical’s range of power supplies allows users to have confidence their security system is protected against power surges and mains fails. PDM’s in this range minimise the likelihood of total system shutdown in the event of a short circuit. For further information please contact your local CSD branch. Distributor: CSD Contact: 1300 319 499 or visit: csd.com.au

Distributor: LSC Security Supplies Contact: 1300 646 269 Website: www. lscsecuritysupplies.com.au

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MILESTONE RELEASES XPROTECT 2018 R1 l CSD says the new XProtect 2018 R1 is the first time a VMS will

incorporate multiple graphic cards in its video decoding, pushing the boundaries of video management and setting a new record in terms of performance. By harnessing the power of multiple NVIDIA graphic cards with the Milestone VMS, the processing power required for video decoding on the Smart Client is shifted from the CPU to the GPU. This gives Milestone the ability to display more high-resolution cameras and more HD Video displays, as part of the Smart Video Wall functionality, without putting extra load on the CPU. Distributor: CSD Contact: 1300 319 499, or visit: csd.com.au

VIVOTEK INTRODUCES NEW H.265 FLAGSHIP CAMERAS l VIVOTEK has added 5 new flagship H.265/HEVC cameras to add to its H.265 product line. The release includes three 2MP fixed dome cameras, FD9165-HT, FD9365-HTV and FD9365-EHTV and a pair of 2-megapixel bullet cameras, IB9365-EHT and IB9365-HT (all available by the end of March*). The series of cameras are embedded Trend Micro’s anti-intrusion software, empowering them to automatically detect and prevent credential-based attack as well as block suspicious events, and enabling users to enjoy higher levels of network security. The newly added H.265 cameras are equipped with the new generation of technology, including Smart Stream III and SNVII (Supreme Night Visibility II), making these cameras capable of optimizing both bandwidth and storage efficiency by up to 90 per cent, while ensuring safety and security around the clock. These latest flagship cameras have employed VIVOTEK’s Smart Stream III technology to maximize bandwidth and storage efficiency. Distributor: Vivotek Contact: +886-2-8245-5282

JOHNSON CONTROLS UPDATES VICTOR l JOHNSON Controls introduces version 5.2 of its victor Video

Management System and VideoEdge Network Video Recorders (NVRs) from American Dynamics, a video management system that provides enhanced video intelligence and analytics for security personnel and daily business operations. The victor client on VideoEdge hardware platforms allows users to leverage high-performance video streaming, audio, motion meta-data and an expansive feature set for improved realtime command and management, according to the company. Johnson Controls says the combination of victor and VideoEdge maximizes smart streaming resources to optimize operation of high-resolution cameras and robust analytics while providing more efficient bandwidth management. In addition to the transcoding options, by accepting triple video streams from the camera to the NVR, victor and VideoEdge allows for effective video management software operation in a bandwidth intensive environment. Operators can both listen and speak to individuals near a camera for improved situational response and control with new bi-directional audio support.

UNIVIEW LAUNCHES 2 NEW RANGES OF IP CAMERAS l THERE are 4 models in the 5MP starlight range: Eyeball dome, vandal IR dome, and IR bullet cameras, all with a 5x motorised lens, as well as 2 models of fixed lens turret. The new 5MP 1 /2.7inch sensor forms part of the Starlight range and offers excellent low light performance down to just 0.001 lux in colour. Three new models of 8MP camera add to the existing 4K range: Eyeball dome, vandal dome, and IR bullet cameras, all with 4x motorised lenses. These 3 new models feature a brand new ½-inch sensor that radically improves low light perfomance to just 0.003 Lux , and creates lower price points. Distributor: C.R. Kennedy Contact: +61 3 9823 1555

Distributor: Tyco Security Products Contact: +61 4 6776 3544

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● Regulars

Help desk ■ Below are the approximate recommendations for rest times (complete rest, that is) between sets according to your goal, per the National Streng th and Conditioning Association (NSCA). *Note that since fat loss depends primarily on diet, there is no official rest-period prescription for it, although we feel that both short and long rests work, depending on the program.

Q: There are objective tests available which measure parameters of camera performance. At the same time, there are some variables that seem subjective – they might depend on application and relate to focus at a necessary depth of field, motion blur in a specific location facing specific challenges, backlight performance, performance at the edge and much more. Is there a software analysis tool that’s capable of managing all the vagaries that combine to decide key performance vectors? What does SEN think the key operational vector of a surveillance camera is and can it really be tested for across an entire scene – edge to edge, front to back? A: There may be some elements of an image that might be called subjective but it’s tricky. For instance, a quality like motion blur, which is difficult to quantify and hard to place a value on subjectively, might be judged by testing for modulation transfer function (MTF) or spatial frequency response (SFR). Image quality analysis software solution like Image Engineering’s iQ-Analyser, which is distributed locally by VidiLabs, gives a lot of scope to get a more accurate picture of camera performance based on objective parameters. Vectors like OCEF, dynamic range, white balance, noise and ISO speed, visual noise, MTF, limiting resolution, distortions including lateral and longitudinal chromatic aberrations, vignetting, shading and flare, as

Our panel of experts answers your questions.

well as colour rendition, can all be tested for. Obviously, they can be tested in the same application to get a strong sense of which camera performs best. It’s the way a camera handles all these shifting vectors across a scene in real time through changing conditions that’s hardest to assess. As control room operators know very well, their applications will often pose unique challenges through a daily light cycle. The key vector of a camera is arguably sharpness – think of sharpness as the clarity of boundaries between colours and tones in a scene. You’d measure the sharpness of digital cameras (with their variable sensor sizes) as line-widths-per-pictureheight, though cycles-per-pixel would be another useful measurement, telling you how effective each pixel is across a scene. Subjectively and objectively, an ideal area for sharpness measurement using MTF is to pick an area showing about half sharpness value – low or peak – an area where there’s still plenty of detail discernible to the human eye. If you try to subjectively assess sharpness in the murkiest parts of a scenes it will be a struggle – under about 10 per cent MTF the human eye is not performing very well at all. Software will do better at the challenging ends of the performance spectrum.

A nice thing about sharpness as a test vector for surveillance cameras is that factors like flare, blooming, amplification noise, lens distortions, poor sensor performance – things like inability to render subtle differences in colour – will all feed into overall sharpness score. This is a double-edged sword for the perfectionist tester. The 10-90 per cent rise distance of pixel level is a typical sharpness measurement of an entire camera solution – lens, sensor, camera engine, cabling and network – as well as the firmware inside and outside the camera that might be putting work onto an image. Calculating the rise distance of lens or sensor individually is something else entirely. At SEN, we measure performance in our camera tests by viewing test target bar patterns, matching colours to a colour bar and assessing degrees of blur, among other things. This process is undertaken with the naked eye – it’s subjective but not entirely so, and it’s not without considerable value. But subjective tests, even those of experienced testers using the same tests targets and comparing images of the same scenes in varying conditions, can’t be exactly repeated and can’t give absolute measurements that allow absolute comparisons between cameras the way software testing can. Yellow colour cast at1800k

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operational parameters, the ability exists. I think the level of white light the camera was pushing back off the scene at 10m was sub-10 lux - the white light array is not a floodlight. The Exmor R sensor must be playing a role, too, because performance in colour in failing light – that’s sub 500 lux where most cameras fail to capture moving plates – was also elevated. There was some processing swim in the stream at all light levels, but it was very consistent and did not increase appreciably in low light. I had a conversation recently with an integrator who pointed out that in many applications, operational parameters are paramount, and it does not matter how the required results are obtained. If you must have court admissible moving plates and faces in low light, then many aspects of camera performance that might be appreciated when viewing static scenes fade into the background. For instance, consider the point sharpness gives way – the vanishing resolution – which may vary across and through a scene and be the subject of intense debate between human observers. I wouldn’t say the human eye isn’t capable of accurate assessments, but those assessments are going to be generalisations and will have biases that could be governed by observer expectation, tiredness, the quality of an observer’s vision, the performance of an observer’s monitor, whatever image quality happens to be front of an observer’s mind in a split second of decision and more. Whatever values software applies, it will apply them all equally, all the time. An observer might perceive excellent colour rendition and natural tones but an ability to put consistent empirical values on a sensor’s colour performance by measuring peak sensitivity of red, green and blue pixels? Not a chance. Q: If we install colour cameras with low pressure sodium light will we get adequate colour performance? Would using day/night cameras help? A: Low-pressure sodium doesn’t give the best colour variation when used with colour cameras in day mode. On the monitor, all lighter colours will tend to appear yellow and darker colours will tend to black. Most modern digital cameras of quality don’t do a bad job of handling the colour cast

generated by colour temperatures under 1800k, but some do better than others. The most neutral performers I’ve seen recently included Axis, Panasonic and Sony, when it came to handling sodium street lights. Q: Reading SEN’s review of the Sony bullet with integrated white light I wondered if it was fair to compare it to cameras without integrated lighting systems. Can it be called ‘low light performance’ when the camera puts directional white light onto a target? A: This was something we considered during the test and frankly, it was a bit of a brain fry. Sure, this camera is not like other cameras – yes, it activates integrated white light when it senses movement so its actual low light performance is the reflectance of the white light array at a given depth of field. But the SNC-VB642D is also capable of actually getting plates at sub-1 lux ambient light at the lens, so in terms of Sony bullet

Q: During the recent school shooting in Florida, the shooter activated the fire alarm – students rushed from classes into firing lines and presumably the access control system failed open. What do you think would have been the best solution in this case? Could analytics have detected the event and re-powered access control doors? How can the over-riding safety parameters of a fire system take security into account? A: I think bag checks and magnetometers might stop weapons being carried into school grounds if access could be confined to managed points staffed by well-trained and equipped security teams empowered to respond to any circumstance. It’s hard to imagine a way to ensure fire systems are not leveraged to circumvent even the highest security access control solutions – this is something many electronic security people and security managers struggle with. Fire regulations take precedence over site security and many systems must be reset by the fire brigade after attending a site. You might try to put fire alarm buttons on the secure side where possible. You could cover fire alarm buttons with cameras with events reported to security staff in real time to generate a real time response from security teams and/or school staff. Frankly, this question underscores a conversation that needs to happen. n

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MARCH 2018 ISSUE 396

SUPER SENSORS

events ISC West

PP 100001158

Date: April 11-13, 2018 Venue: Sands Expo, Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A Contact: (203) 840-5568 ISC West is the largest security industry trade show in the U.S. and gives visitors the chance to network with more than 1000 exhibitors across a wide range of security technologies.

+ SecTech Roadshow 2018 Dates: May 2018 Venues: Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth Contact: Monique Keatinge +61 2 9280 4425 SecTech Roadshow in it's 4th year takes leading electronic security manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers on a national tour.

Internet of Things World

Date: May 14-17, 2018 Venue: Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA, USA Contact: +1 646 616 7610 IOT in action. From strategy to implementation. Every vertical covered. Every technology demonstrated. Where the world gathers to put the Internet of Things into action.

Security 2018 Date: July 25-27 Venue: 2018 Mebourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Contact: +61 3 9261 4662 Security Exhibition brings the largest selection of electronic and physical security suppliers in Australia to one destination for 3 days.

SECURITY & GOVERNMENT EXPO

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Security and Government Expo 2018

Date: November 2018 Venue: The Realm Hotel, Canberra Contact: Monique +61 2 9280 4425 Security and Government Expo is a one-day expo with over 30 companies promoting their technologies and products in the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital. SAGE brings together government and commercial end users, consultants, integrators and installers in Canberra and the ACT to see the latest security solutions in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

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www.csmerchants.com.au www.csmerchants.com.au

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• Add & delete users to Integriti via Milestone ACM • Create LPR triggered access credentials • View & control access doors

• Review video for access events • Manage and respond to alarm events • Associate video to alarm or access events

This perfect partnership has created a world class, industry leading, Video Access & Security Management System.

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