Security Electronics & Networks Magazine

Security Managers ◆ Integrators ◆ IT Managers ◆ Installers OCTOBER 2019 ISSUE 414

l Business As Usual For Interlogix ANZ l Security Integrators Confused By Chinese Camera Ban

MEGAPIXEL LENS CONSIDERATIONS

l Case Study: Next Level Data Centre l Product Review: Saab OneView Management System l Hikvision Sharpens Focus On Small Medium Business l Special Report: Challenges of Airport Security

l Alarm Monitoring: Making The Grade l Case Study: Dahua Protects Recife Subway l Special Report: Securing Schools & Universities

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editorial S E CU RI TY E L ECTR O NI C S & NETWO R KS O CTO BER 201 9 ISSUE 41 4

By John Adams

FEAR OF VIDEO ANALYTICS GROWING

URING every site visit D SEN has undertaken this year end users have expressed some concerns felt by their organisations towards video analytics and in particular face recognition. It’s a trend that could strip the electronic security industry’s future of its operational crown jewels.

In recent conversations, switched-on senior managers have variously and categorically stated things like: ‘We won’t be going there’ or ‘our clients have requested we don’t use those features’ or ‘the public has no appetite for those sorts of things’ or ‘we might be able to look at that in the future’ and even ‘management doesn’t want to take the risk’. Meanwhile, end users who are interested in analytics are also aware of the issues other security managers are facing and they are all talking about it.

Listening to these sentiments from 4 different end users last month, I realised the security industry hasn’t lost control of the narrative around the use of analytics, it has never engaged with the narrative at all. From the point of view of operational security teams, the message should be that carefully and transparently applied, video and data analytics are finally allowing electronic security and automation solutions to operate at close to their full potential. Failure to get this message out is likely to mean administrators and senior managers will fail to properly weigh the advantages of analytics during their deliberations.

The danger to the

While public surveillance solutions are governed by strict and open protocols in Australia, this is not the case elsewhere. industry isn’t just that analytics of all kinds deliver operational torque and serious gains in time efficiency and cost reduction, it’s that many future features at all layers of our product stacks are going to depend on leveraging a technology that may no longer have the trust and support of users. In all my time writing about security technology the industry has never faced an issue quite as thorny as this one and it’s difficult to see us digging our way out of it entirely.

Something that makes the task more difficult is end users and consumers don’t fully comprehend the capabilities and the limitations of video analytics. Even when empowered by deep learning, they are not omniscient. Furthermore, they inform human response, they are not intrinsically reactive. For many security operations, analytics is most worthwhile when searching for past events, or creating situational awareness in integrated solutions.

Another key issue is that security technology is being used outside Australia in ways that concern the public here. For instance, while public surveillance solutions are governed by strict and open protocols in Australia, this is not the case elsewhere.

As yet there’s been no specific action against technologies like face recognition, gait detection and other analytics at a higher government level in Australia, or in countries like the U.S. and the United Kingdom. But the tension is there and it’s growing. If the industry – suppliers and users – can’t move in a responsible and coherent way to allay fears, then it’s highly likely

the future of video analytics is going to be taken out of our hands.

Something that’s possible is that we’ll see restrictions in corporate and government organisations, while in lower end application analytics, including face recognition, it will be freely available. At one level this is a good thing but at another it would deprive serious security operations of the technologies they need most.

Undertaking self-restriction is another possible answer and this could be managed by the creation of uniform procedures around the management of sensitive data in some applications.

It may also be possible to hold some analytic technologies at arm’s length by using face recognition or fingerprint matching software contained in users’ smart devices, for example. Even the most socially aware tech users in academia are comfortable using biometrics when these are contained on their own smart devices rather than held in reader databases or cards issued to them by a third party. Security people know this bias towards unsecure smart devices makes no sense, but it’s the way things are.

Exactly how the electronic security industry is going to manage such nebulous issues remains to be seen but an open conversation needs to start between end users, suppliers, integrators and consultants - and the sooner it starts the better. The thought we might lose a technology that promises to make sense of our data inputs in real time is not a happy one.

But if we take the comments of serious end users across multiple verticals at face value, the risk is real. n

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4TH A N N UA L

SECURITY AND GOVERNMENT EXPO SECURITY

& GOVERNMENT EXPO

W W W. S E C U R I T YA N D G O V E R N M E N T E X P O . C O M . A U

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FREE EVENT

REGISTRATIO N N OW O P E N Don't miss Security and Government Expo The Hotel Realm, Canberra.

November 14, 2019 Canberra Bringing the latest security products and technologies to government and commercial end users, installers and consultants in the nation’s capital.

Expo opens 12PM – 6PM ASIS ACT SEMINARS & SAGE ANALYTICS SEGMENT 10.00AM – 3.30PM EXPO REFRESHMENTS 3.30PM – 5.30PM GUEST SPEAKER 4.00PM – 4.30PM EXPO CLOSES 6.00PM ASIS DINNER – PRESS CLUB DRINKS START 6.00PM See www.securityandgovernment.com.au for program and speaker details SPONSORS & SUPPORTERS

TM

ACT Chapter

F O R F U R T H E R I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T M O N I Q U E K E AT I N G E O N 0 2 9 2 8 0 4 4 2 5

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10

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Genetec Security Center 5.8 and Synergis, HID VertX control panels and HID iClass SE readers, as well as Axis CCTV cameras, across 9 Australian data centres.

28: SAAB ONEVIEW

10: BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR INTERLOGIX ANZ Local Interlogix management said it remains business as usual for Australia and New Zealand and there will be no impact in customer’s day to day relationships with Interlogix.

10: U.S. SECURITY INTEGRATORS CONFUSED BY CHINESE CAMERA BAN America’s Federal Acquisition Regulation rule, which applies to 5 Chinese companies — including Dahua and Hikvision – is confusing U.S. electronic security integrators.

14: HIKVISION SHARPENS FOCUS ON SMALL MEDIUM BUSINESS Hikvision is sharpening its focus on CCTV solutions designed for small and medium-sized businesses, including its new Performance Thermal Series, ColorVu and AcuSense technologies.

20: NEXT LEVEL DATA CENTRE NextDC has deployed a no-holds barred electronic security solution of its own design, comprising

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Saab OneView was born a custom PSIM and has evolved into a situational awareness engine that’s endlessly customisable and relentlessly expandable. The most difficult thing about a management solution with this much depth and lateral potential is trying to describe it in a single sentence.

36: SECURING AIRPORTS There’s something frightening about airport and airline security – the multiplicity of technologies, the disparate manpower and response teams with their proprietary chains of command, the issue of size - the bigger the airport, the greater the traffic of aircraft and passengers. Greater size means an even more complex layering of security solutions and a brief that’ll keep even the best organized security manager nailed to the edge of their seat.

40: MEGAPIXEL LENS CONSIDERATIONS Most cameras have resolutions of at least 720p and some are 29MP, while sensor sizes are growing – the 1/3-inch sensor is too small for megapixel performance. The changes mean installers can’t go for the lowest cost lenses but getting megapixel lens selection right is a challenging business.

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56 46 40

48

regulars

46: DAHUA PROTECTS SUBWAY Integrator Avantia has installed a 1380-camera Dahua CCTV solution to help protect the 71km subway system of Recife in Brazil with a new video surveillance solution that incorporates video analytics and comprises nearly 1400 CCTV cameras.

48: SECURING SCHOOLS & UNIVERSITIES Securing educational facilities like schools and universities is particularly challenging. Yet the open/closed nature of these sites offers security professionals an opportunity to leverage the latest technologies to deliver the greatest possible performance without imposing the restrictions typical on high security sites.

Security Managers ◆ Integrators ◆ IT Managers ◆ Installers OCTOBER 2019 ISSUE 414

l Business As Usual For Interlogix ANZ

MEGAPIXEL LENS CONSIDERATIONS

PP 100001158

l Security Integrators Confused By Chinese Camera Ban l Case Study: Next Level Data Centre l Product Review: Saab OneView Management System l Hikvision Sharpens Focus On Small Medium Business l Special Report: Challenges of Airport Security

l Alarm Monitoring: Making The Grade l Case Study: Dahua Protects Recife Subway l Special Report: Securing Schools & Universities

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

10: NEWS Latest business, product and technical news from Australia and around the world.

44: MONITORING Grade A1 monitoring stations are designed to provide the utmost physical security along with full redundancy across a range of support systems, ensuing customers have the best possible response and infrastructure protection.

54: EDITOR’S CHOICE What’s new from our manufacturers.

56: 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: tania@ taniasdesign.com.au

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NEWS IN BRIEF OCTOBER 2019

TWO MORE EXHIBITORS BOOK SAGE 2019, ONLY 2 FOYER SPOTS LEFT! n WESTERN Advance and Mitygo have joined Security & Government Expo 2019 at the Realm Hotel in Canberra and there are now 32 companies on board for the November 14 event. Just 2 foyer spaces remain before

SAGE is sold out. Exhibitors interested in booking one of the last 2 foyer spaces should call Monique on 61 2 9280 4425 without delay.

Sponsored by ASIS ACT, Inner Range and SEN, SAGE 2019 exhibitors include

Western Advance, Mitygo, Axis Communications, Milestone Systems, Honeywell, Gallagher, Inner Range, SCSI, Sektor, Saab, Ezi Security Systems, Gunnebo, BM Doors, Amor Australia, Secure Edge, HID,

HILLS SELLS ANTENNA BUSINESS TO BITEK n HILLS has entered into a binding agreement for the sale of its antenna business to the Australian-owned and operated Bitek. Under the agreement, which is subject to standard completion conditions, the family-run Bitek will take over the manufacture and sale of the Hills range of antennas, including the iconic Black Arrow, to become a leading supplier of products to the free-to-air, David Lenz

broadband, cable and pay television industries.

Hills managing director and chief executive officer David Lenz said Bitek was the ideal party to build on Hills’ 63 years of experience in the antenna industry in Australia and New Zealand.

“With more than 2 decades of local industry experience, Bitek is the perfect fit for our Antenna business,” Lenz said.

“We’re delighted the Hills

name and its much-loved products will live on in the antenna industry, along with Hills’ commitment to providing the best support and services for our customers.”

Lenz said Hills would work closely with Bitek to ensure a successful, smooth handover of the business for customers and employees.

Meanwhile, managing director Kaz Bialecki said Bitek was excited by the opportunity to bring together the 2 leading players in the ATV and MATV industries and to continue the manufacture of Hills antennas in South Australia.

“With a combined sales and support team of 55 across Australian and New Zealand, customers of Hills and Bitek can expect a larger range of products – both Australian-made and the best from around the world – and even stronger sales and customer support,” Bialecki said.

FSH, AMS Australia, Moog, Sensing Products, Dataline Visual Link, Panasonic, Ness Corp, Perimeter Systems Australia, Bosch Security, EVVA/EKKA Cyberlock, Nirovision, ASSA ABLOY, SRA Solutions, Rhinoco, CardServID, and Geutebruck.

Meanwhile, industry partner ASIS ACT’s seminar speakers for SAGE 2019 have been finalised with only the guest keynote speaker, who will present inside the exhibition hall, yet to be announced.

The ASIS ACT and SAGE Programme includes: 10.15am -10.45am – Raymond Frangie speaking Damjanovski onVlado “Cyber Security and Security Systems” 11am – 11.45am – Don Williams speaking on “Common Sense when

Considering Blast Mitigation” 12pm – 2pm – Analytics Segment – Nirovision, Briefcam, Bosch, Avigilon and AnyVision.

2.15pm – 2.45pm – Nicky Finn speaking on “Security Culture and Education” 3pm – 3.30pm – Julian Claxton speaking on “Insider Threat Management” 4pm – 4.30pm – Guest Speaker (TBA) The SAGE 2019 seminar programme includes an Analytics Segment – a series of technical seminars organised by SEN, allowing end users, integrators and consultants to get across key functionalities of the latest analytics solutions from Nirovision, Briefcam, Bosch, Avigilon, Mobotix and AnyVision.

CITY OF BUSSELTON PLANS EXPANSION OF CCTV, SEEKS CONTRACTOR

n THE City of Busselton in Western Australia has invited tenders to engage a suitable contractor to extend its closed-circuit television surveillance capacity at multiple locations to ensure ongoing community safety, asset protection and crime prevention.

The project will involve the installation of CCTV hardware and software

at Busselton Foreshore, Naturaliste Commmunity Centre and John Edwards Pavilion and ongoing maintenance and support services for these locations.

CCTV will enhance safety and security for the Busselton Foreshore Masterplan, part of which includes a new 120room Hilton Resort to be developed at 600 Foreshore Parade.

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NZSIA Honours Sir William Gallagher With Visionary Leadership Award p.12 $US5.6 Billion Vivint Smart Home And Mosaic Acquisition To Merge p.14 WestConnex M4-M5 Link Tunnels Installing CCTV Cameras p.16 ASIAL Achievement Awards And Outstanding Performance Awards Decided p.18

COMPILED BY JOHN ADAMS

U.S. SECURITY INTEGRATORS CONFUSED BY CHINESE CAMERA BAN

n AMERICA’S Federal Acquisition Regulation rule, which applies to 5 Chinese companies — including Dahua and Hikvision – is confusing U.S. electronic security integrators. The interim Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rule, which was implemented on August 13, is referred to as Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The interim rule applies to all new contracts and procurements as well as existing indefinite delivery contracts, plus options

picked up for existing contracts and bars federal agencies from purchasing equipment from the 5 companies or renewing contracts with them.

The rule mandates that contractors identify as part of their specification any security, video surveillance and telecommunications products and services provided to the government, including those supplied by subcontractors.

Lynn de Seve, president of GSA Schedules, told SSI recently that government contractors have “expressed

a great deal of confusion about the scope of the ban and what it will mean for their businesses”.

“GSA contractors will have some additional contracting requirements and certification to comply with as they are considered high risk for violations,” she said. “Government agencies will be mindful of whether they need to include the additional FAR language at the contracts level, in addition to the GSA requirements, for contractors and when they apply.”

Meanwhile, Jake Parker, senior director of government relations for the Security Industry Association (SIA) told SSI there was no statutory mandate included in Section 889 that requires the removal of existing equipment covered by the ban.

“However, given the procurement prohibition, eventual replacement is expected through the normal tech refresh cycle for such equipment, and it is possible agencies may decide on their own to initiate replacement,” Parker explained. “Additionally, a plan for replacement would be required from government entities seeking an agency waiver to allow continued procurement of the covered equipment after Aug. 13.”

Jennifer Mapes-Christ, senior analyst and manager of the consumer and commercial goods group at researcher Freedonia Group agreed there was confusion around the new rules.

“Even camera installers are still unclear if this provision means that all schools, hospitals, contractors, etc., must remove all existing

electronic branded by those companies or if they just have to buy something else when they ultimately replace the equipment,” Mapes-Christ said.

Hikvision and Dahua said they were disappointed with the rule and said the ban was unmerited.

“We believe this provision is unjust and targeted Hikvision without reason or evidence of wrongdoing – meanwhile, we are evaluating every option available to contest this groundless inclusion and protect the rights and interests of the company and our partners,” Hikvision said.

In an online response to the rule, Dahua said: “The prohibition was hastily enacted without any supporting evidentiary basis or due process. To be clear, the prohibition only relates to federal agencies.

Commercial entities may continue to purchase Dahua products, as may state and local governments generally.”

The rule impacts on a government security business vertical worth $US700 million – around one-sixth of the total U.S. CCTV market.

INNOTEC, CONVERGINT TECHNOLOGIES AND DYCOM WIRELESS WIN PORT PHILLIP CCTV CONTRACT n INTEGRATORS Innotec, Convergint Technology and DyCom Wireless have won a contract to design and construct miscellaneous CCTV works for the City of Port Phillip in Melbourne.

The tender, which closed last December and was awarded last month and relates to a $A275,000 grant awarded to install cameras along Acland Street, while $33,000 in funding came from the Foreshore CCTV project.

Camera locations have been selected by Victoria Police based on data.

There were 4 cameras installed in Stage One over the project, with Stage 2 cameras located on third party assets requiring additional consultation with asset owners and approvals. Meanwhile, Stage 3 will see 2 more cameras delivered subject to funding.

In Stage 1 cameras will be installed at the Palais Theatre and Luna Park foreshore facing Cavell Street and Shakespeare Grove, St Kilda Life Saving Club facing the St Kilda Triangle carpark and Talbot Reserve. In Stage

2, at the intersection of Acland Street and Carlisle Street, the intersection of Acland Street and Shakespeare Grove and Acland Street Plaza.

Stage 3 includes the intersection of Acland Street and Belford Street and the intersection of Carlisle and Barkly Street.

Victoria Police will operate the cameras and monitor the system from the St Kilda Police Station.

The management of the CCTV system is governed by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Council and

Victoria Police. Footage is stored at the St Kilda Police Station, only police have access and data will

be written over after 30 days if no request has been made to view or access it during this period.

Kendra Ross

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NEWS OCTOBER 2019

NZSIA HONOURS SIR WILLIAM GALLAGHER WITH VISIONARY LEADERSHIP AWARD n NEW Zealand’s Security industry has presented Sir William Gallagher, chief executive officer and executive director of Gallagher with a Visionary Leadership Award at the annual New Zealand Security Association (NZSA) awards.

The Visionary Leadership Award recognised the 57 years that Sir William has led the Gallagher business and inspired the people who Sir William Gallagher

work there. Throughout his career, Sir William has shown exceptional vision in identifying emerging opportunities in the security industry and has championed his team to develop highly innovative products which compete on the world stage.

“I’m honoured to have received the Visionary Leadership Award,” said Sir William. “While technology and innovation are integral to our success, it’s people

who are at the heart of what we do. We have an outstanding team at Gallagher, some of the brightest minds in the world, in my opinion. To be recognised for leading our people and for continuing to successfully lead the business that my father started, really means a great deal to me.”

In addition to the Visionary Leadership Award, Gallagher also won the NZSA Best Product of the Year Award for its innovative Type A Alarm solution. The Type A innovation delivers the highest level of electronic intruder detection to the New Zealand Government and armed forces. The solution was recognised for pioneering new standards of security in New Zealand.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

n LOCAL Interlogix management said it remains business as usual for Australia and New Zealand and there will be no impact in customer’s day to day relationships with Interlogix.

The news about continuity in the Australian and New Zealand operations comes after the recent decision to close the U.S. and Canada

businesses to focus on fire and security opportunities internationally.

According to a source in Australia, the Tecom portfolio is not impacted as the product is engineered and developed out of Australia for global distribution, nor is there any impact on other Interlogix brands including Lenel, Kidde, Onity and Quell.

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For more information on these and other best-in-class solutions from Hills Limited call us on 1300 HILLS1 (445 571) or visit hills.com.au

Follow us on CONNECT

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NEWS OCTOBER 2019

HIKVISION IS SHARPENING ITS FOCUS ON CCTV SOLUTIONS DESIGNED FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESSES n At GSX 2019 in the U.S. Hikvision launched its new Performance Thermal Series, ColorVu and AcuSense technologies.

AcuSense makes deep learning technology affordable for SMBs and allows cameras to sense human and vehicle movement versus nonhuman objects such as rain, animals and leaves, providing intrusion detection and reduction in false alarms.

Meanwhile, ColorVu imaging technology is

designed to deliver colour, full-motion images and video in zero-light environments using a high-performance sensor, a large f1.0 aperture lens and modest additional lighting.

The new Performance Series Thermal Cameras include deep learning and GPU-powered video content analysis for efficient perimeter defence, fire prevention and predictive maintenance at half the price of the former products.

The company also launched Hikvision

Product Selector at GSX, an online tool to simplify and streamline product search and selection for Hikvision dealers and distributors.

“Hikvision has more than 200 SKU numbers in the IP camera category alone,” said Forest Liu, Hikvision senior director of product management and marketing. “We wanted to make it easy for our partners to see what all our cameras look like and quickly compare features so they can choose the best product for every project.”

MOBOTIX BROADENS REACH WITH PARTNER SOCIETY

Thomas Lausten

n MOBOTIX Partner Society’s goal is to develop secure complete solutions based on joint innovations with MOBOTIX partners that expand the MOBOTIX portfolio and open new markets.

With the combined expertise of 2 or more companies that know what the market needs through working with their customers, MOBOTIX is also able to solve special challenges and close market gaps. As a new platform, the MOBOTIX Partner Society bundles the entire spectrum of individual application solutions and makes them accessible to a wide market.

“Thanks to the Partner Society, we are able to offer a unique platform that makes the search for intelligent components

that have individual requirements much easier.

The new platform creates new connections, generates synergies, and opens up new markets,” explains Thomas Lausten, CEO of MOBOTIX AG. “The Partner Society is another important step for MOBOTIX in its transformation process from a premium product manufacturer to a fullservice provider of cyber secure solutions based on our strong German manufacturing DNA.” There have been 2 Partner Society programmes – Technology Partners and Solution Partners – created.

Technology Partners are innovative manufacturers of complementary products who have integrated MOBOTIX in their own products.

$US5.6 BILLION VIVINT SMART HOME AND MOSAIC ACQUISITION TO MERGE nVIVANT Smart Home and Mosaic Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company, have entered into a definitive agreement to merge Vivint with a subsidiary of Mosaic to create Vivint Smart Home Inc. With an agreed initial enterprise value of $US5.6 billion, Vivint is anticipated to have revenues of $1.3 billion for fiscal year 2020E and Adjusted EBITDA of $530 million, implying an Adjusted EBITDA multiple of approximately 10.5x, according to the details outlined in the agreement.

“We are excited to

partner with Mosaic to unlock the next chapter of the Vivint growth story,” Todd Pedersen, founder and CEO of Vivint, said in the announcement. “We remain committed to our mission of redefining the home experience through intelligently designed, cloud-enabled solutions delivered to every home by people who care.

“Just as it was in 1999 when I founded this business, to today where we are a multi-billiondollar enterprise, our customers remain our focus. As the smart home market rapidly expands globally, Vivint is in the

early stage of a massive opportunity and is ready to create the future of how we live and interact with our homes.”

Vivint delivers integrated smart home products and cloud-enabled services to 1.5 million subscribers across 98 per cent of the zip codes in the U.S., and in Canada, according to the company, and offers a comprehensive suite of smart home products along with professional installation, nationwide in-home service, and 24/7 professional monitoring and customer care.

Following the closing of the merger, Vivint will

continue to be led by its experienced management team, including Pedersen, president Alex Dunn and CFO Mark Davies. All existing Vivint directors will serve on the board of directors of the combined company, joined by David Maura from Mosaic and,

after the closing and subject to regulatory approval, by a director from the SoftBank Vision Fund.

The nature of the acquisition suggests an unfolding story, as well as underlining the growing value of the smart home market.

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DATIONS ABLED TO CURITY HE N AND NING ANCE

NEWS OCTOBER 2019

WESTCONNEX M4-M5 LINK TUNNELS INSTALLING CCTV CAMERAS n LENDLEASE Samsung Bouygues Joint Venture has gone to tender seeking CCTV cameras for the WestConnect M4-M5 Link tunnels. WestConnex is a 33-kilometre

underground motorway scheme currently under construction in Sydney with a projected cost of between $A20-45 billion.

It includes the new M5 motorway, which opens

in 2020 and incorporates twin underground tunnels, stretching 9 kilometres from Kingsgrove to the new St Peters Interchange.

Meanwile, the M4-M5 Link features twin tunnels

INTERCOAX, MOBOTIX DRIVING IP CAMERAS OVER ANALOGUE & STRUCTURED CABLING n INTERCOAX and Mobotix have entered a strategic partnership that will enable customers of both companies to leverage Mobotix IP cameras and solutions in combination with high-performance Intercoax transmission products via existing copper infrastructure or conventional structured cable topology.

The main gain for the installers of Mobotix products and solutions or for system integrators is that they can now offer end users a significantly Vincent Matthys

cheaper solution compared to conventional transmission topologies such as fiber optics and structured cable. Intercoax solutions do not alter the on-site infrastructure and can be deployed much more quickly than other topologies.

“Many customers are looking for faster and less complex solutions to migrate older copper systems to IP,” said Vincent Matthys, CEO, Intercoax EMEA. “With Intercoax products, existing copper infrastructures can easily be upgraded to IP without the need to install new cabling. This reduces both customer costs and end user disruption to an absolute minimum.

“Even when installing wide-range networks, Intercoax solutions represent a much more cost-effective and timesaving solution compared to conventional fiber optic topologies. Moreover, the technology is noninvasive and delivers a cost reduction (TCO) of up to 60 per cent,” he said.

Prior to this agreement, the companies had begun to integrate the respective partner technology and the advantages of long-range Ethernet into their own products and solutions.

Both companies are working on large-scale projects based on the migration from analogue to IP over coaxial cables, and on new IP camera projects with transmission distances that go far beyond the conventional structured cable topology.

“Our partner Intercoax is a perfect match as their technology enables us to integrate our products and solutions with customers whose network infrastructures and cable topology are not designed to accommodate these,” said Hartmut Sprave, CTO of Mobotix AG. “Intercoax allows us to avoid expensive rewiring and to install a future-proof IP video surveillance system using the existing network infrastructure.”

connecting the New M4 at Haberfield to the New M5 at St Peters, as well as an underground bypass of Victoria Road between the Iron Cove and Anzac Bridges. In terms of management solutions deployed at WestConnex Tunnels, SICE is delivering the M4E and M5 tunnel sections, which include a pair of tunnels with a length of 5.5 km and a pair of tunnels with a length of 9 km.

SICE has been selected to supply its Operations & Management Software (OMCS) SIDERA solution for the M4 East section of WestConnex, currently in the commissioning phase

of the project. M4E will be integrated in the future with the M5 section into a single control platform called Integrated OMCS (IOMCS), which will operate the entire WestConnex motorway scheme using SIDERA software.

Besides developing the control software and the C2C system, SICE designed the comms and PLC networks, the vehicle detection system (VDS), variable message signs (VMS), CCTV networks, motorway emergency phone systems, radio network and more. The video management system used by the M5 is Genetec Security Center.

FIJI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY TO IMPLEMENT ENTERPRISE VIDEO SURVEILLANCE & VMS n FIJI National University has invited written expressions of interest from reputable security integration and security consultancy companies to provide proposals for undertaking a comprehensive survey and review of the existing CCTV system. FNU sought submissions that best met the requirements of the university in terms of a video surveillance and video management system across its campuses, as well as supporting the manned security system currently in place.

Fiji National University (FNU) formed in 2010 as a result of a merger between 6 institutions in

Fiji, namely the Fiji Institute of Technology, Fiji School of Nursing, Fiji College of Advanced Education, Lautoka Teachers College, Fiji School of Medicine and Fiji College of Agriculture.

FNU has approximately 20,000 students studying across 11 campuses nationwide in Suva (7 campuses, including Fiji Maritime Academy), Nadi, Lautoka, Ba and Labasa (in Vanua Levu). The University has approximately 2000 staff, including 800 academic faculty members.

In addition, the University hosts the National Training and Productivity Centre, which trains 10,000 in-service students from industry each year.

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A ground breaking alarm panel now comes with a ground breaking app (the new and improved)

The SkyCommand App Now available on iOS and Android

�

Free to download

� Setup takes just a few minutes bell Get real-time notifications

(subscription needed)

� Control doors and outputs remotely � Monitor inputs � Arm/Disarm areas

Direct integration with the Inception security controller

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NEWS OCTOBER 2019

ASIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS AND OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE AWARDS DECIDED n THE Australian Security Industry Awards for Excellence and the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAs) were judged at the ASIAL HQ in Sydney last month. According to ASIAL GM, John Fleming, judging this year was harder than ever, thanks to the large number of nominations – with particularly strong and diverse entries in the indigenous employment,

integrated security solutions, projects and best products categories making the process very difficult.

The OSPAs were also challenging to call – especially in the security consultant, guarding and training initiative categories, and in some cases, it was tough to know who would take out a category until the judges’ scores had been added up.

Judges were drawn from

consulting, technical and security management disciplines and their differing notions of what constituted performance led to plenty of constructive argument.

“I’d like to thank all the nominators for this year’s awards, as well as the judges, particularly Rachell DeLuca, who flew up from Melbourne to participate,” Fleming said.

The 2019 Australian

Security Industry Awards for Excellence and the OSPAs will be held at the Park Hyatt Melbourne on October 17 and will also feature the 2019 Australian Security Medals for the first time.

Security Industry Awards for Excellence Awards to be presented include: • Individual Achievement – General • Individual Achievement – Technical • Gender Diversity • Indigenous Employment • Special Security Event or Project: Outstanding Security Partnership • Integrated Security Solution: – Under $500,000 – Over $500,000 Product of the Year • Alarm • Access Control • CCTV Camera • CCTV IP System/Solution

• Communication/ Transmission System • Physical Security (i.e. bollard, gate, barrier, lock) .

Outstanding Security Performance Awards • Outstanding Female Security Professional • Outstanding Guarding Company • Oustanding Security Manager • Outstanding Security Consultant • Outstanding Security Partnership • Outstanding Security Team • Oustanding Training Initiative.

THE 2019 AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INDUSTRY AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE AND THE OSPAS WILL BE HELD AT THE PARK HYATT MELBOURNE ON OCTOBER 17

OIL REFINERY ATTACKS TO DRIVE INCREASE IN DRONE DETECTION, GROUND RADAR: IHS n RECENT attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields will shunt the global market for perimeter security equipment like radar and drone detection to $US2 billion by 2023, up from $1.3 billion in 2018, according to IHS Markit.

The assault on the world’s largest oil-processing plant

in Saudi Arabia, among other recent attacks on critical infrastructure facilities, will help drive a more than $700 million increase in global demand for perimeter security equipment, such as counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS), according to IHS Markit.

It’s claimed that 25 drones and missiles were used in the attack, which forced the Saudis to shut down half of the country’s oil production and pushed global oil prices up by 15

per cent.

“Organizations like airports, sports stadia and critical infrastructure facilities are all concerned about detecting potential intrusions beyond their perimeters,” says Oliver Philippou, research manager, security technologies, at IHS Markit.

“However, amid recent events, these concerns have now expanded into protecting the local airspace from drone attacks. Perimeter security systems that take a layered approach, including thermal, sensors, ground-based radar, and drone detection technology, are a vital tool for detecting and preventing intruders.”

Layered

perimeter security solutions are particularly useful for countering drone threats, providing multiple means of detecting a potentially hostile flying object. These threats have been at the forefront of security professionals’ minds recently, given the Saudi attack and other incidents such as the events at Dubai Airport in the UAE and at Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom in 2018.

“The recent drone events at the Gatwick and Dubai airports were minor, causing delays lasting a few days at those specific facilities, with no human casualties and no lasting implications for the airports,” Philippou says.

“However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the security industry is an event-driven market — and incidents like

this can have an enormous impact on market spending and technology trends.”

Amid the rising drone threat, defense, security and video-surveillance companies have struck partnerships with counterUAS companies, including Dedrone, DroneShield and Black Sage Technologies.

IHS Markit expects more of these partnerships to occur during the forecast period.

“An effective perimeter security system that ignores the potential threat of nefarious drones is missing more than half of the equation,” Philippou said. “Drones are here to stay and will only expand their role in our daily lives as they start delivering our packages or become our mode of transportation.

Knowing where they are will be essential for safely coexisting in the future.”

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● Case study

NEXTDC

NEXT LEVEL DATA CENTRE NEXTDC has deployed a no-holds barred electronic security solution of its own design, comprising Genetec Security Center 5.8 and Synergis, HID VertX control panels and HID iClass SE readers, as well as Axis CCTV cameras, across 9 Australian data centres.

OU get your first taste of NEXTDC’s intensely layered access control solution as soon as you arrive at the site. First there’s a heavy sliding gate to negotiate via a video intercom conversation with operations staff at the front desk. Once they’ve confirmed you’re expected by checking their management system, you arrive at the front steps but must then be granted access to the facility through a locked door.

Next, you enrol as a visitor with the security team located at the front of house after presenting photo ID and enrolling a biometric scan of your fingerprint via a biometric scanner. I’m assigned a visitors access card, which lets me into a meeting room in the visitors’ area. Later I use my bio-enrolled fingerprint to get through a set of Gunnebo bullet resistant CompacSas BA single airlock doors into what might be called the sterile zone but isn’t really, because NEXTDC’s access control solution opens like a Russian doll. It’s not only the Gunnebo entry

Y

that’s air locked – there’s a second airlock once you’re through to the secure side of the facility, which leads you deeper into the humming sanctum of the data centre.

Managing all this functionality is Genetec’s sophisticated Security Center technology, which integrates access control, video surveillance (via Omnicast), and video intercom. Security Center workstations provide staff with event logs, video monitoring and an interface to not only communicate with customers and open doors for them as they arrive, but as they move through the data centre – and this functionality applies to NEXTDC’s network of 9 data centres and counting.

At the heart of the integration is the Security Center Federation feature which allows for centralised monitoring, reporting and alarm management. Security Center synchronises cameras, doors and other managed hardware, access points and solutions. Built on role-based protocols determined by NEXTDC, Genetec Security Center offers its security and customer service employees managed access to the video surveillance system, video analytics and reporting, access control, 2-factor authentication systems, and intercoms.

NEXTDC’s national footprint is linked by dark fibre with considerable standardisation at every level of the operation - I’m visiting the M2 data centre in Melbourne. It’s an impressive operation. According to David Dzienciol, chief customer officer and executive vice president of technology at NEXTDC, this site is 48,000 square metres with four live data halls and the capacity to grow significantly.

“It’s one of 9 NEXTDC sites across Australia – a 10th site is planned for Perth - and these are all linked by a dedicated network and is federated using Genetec Security Center,” Dzienciol says.

“This federation means an authorised staff member in Brisbane could manage operation of the site here in Melbourne – opening gates and interacting with customers, though system management is primarily site-by-site.

“The access control component of the system is handled in front of house by the security staff, but there’s separate live management of the entire facility within the building and we are considering a national monitoring centre for CCTV cameras as we grow. The CCTV system is used by our security team to keep an eye on the site and to undertake remote guard tours. The way we have deployed the Genetec Security Centre as a federated platform nation-wide has evolved into a key differentiator for our business.”

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BY J O H N A D A M S

According to Dzienciol, one of the revelations when NEXTDC built the M2 site in Melbourne related to operational functionality.

“In every other Generation 1 site the customer boardrooms and breakout spaces were behind the Gunnebo doors,” Dzienciol explains. “We realised this was creating an overhead because if visitors were not inducted, they needed to be escorted by front desk staff to get to a board room, a breakout space, or to have a cup of coffee.

“With the design of M2, we have integrated meeting and break out spaces into front of house as well as back of house. What this means for guests is that they can be issued with guest access to front of house amenities without compromising on data centre security by having non-inducted visitors entering back of house operations. There are layers of authorisation and induction required to get through the Gunnebo doors, then onto corridors, data halls, racks or private caged areas.

“Importantly, Genetec Security Center’s Synergis allows us to build those customised access profiles for each environment and apply them on the basis of each customers requirements – customers have these different profiles assigned to their credentials depending on their requirements.”

Dzienciol says an influence on the design of the access control solution is ensuring that NEXTDC promote an always-open partner environment that supports vital infrastructure on behalf of local and overseas customers.

“A partner environment means a visitor could be a partner of NEXTDC, like a Telstra or Optus, and that partner will have multiple clients wanting access to different racks in the data centre,” he explains.

“These partners must all be inducted and assigned access profiles that allow us to manage what they can access in a particular part of the site.

“Once profiles are assigned, NEXTDC’s internally developed ONEDC customer portal takes over, integrating Security Center and NEXTDC’s managed systems. If there’s a large project happening that customers need access to, we need to be able to provide that access in a precise, secure and

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NEXTDC

seamless way that drives a positive customer experience. The multi-faceted ONEDC portal talks directly to access profiles in Genetec and allows customers of major partners to self-manage their visits, including booking space for meetings and capacity and resource plan for projects, upgrades and maintenance.

“Thanks to Security Center and ONEDC, rigorous access protocols and robust security is ensured at all times,” says Dzienciol. “And so is the customer’s right to have optimal and frictionless access to the data hall and racks containing their organisation’s critical information.”

Dzienciol says ONEDC and its integration with Genetec security systems has driven significant savings by reducing touch points on each request ticket and speeding up the process of approval and delivery - from several days to just a few minutes.

“When it comes to access control in line with security standards, our customers are looking for auto approval and self-service,” he says. “With the level of intelligence built into our security solution we have been able to reduce the number of staff customers need to engage with each time they visit. This enables us to help our customers get to where they need to be, quickly and efficiently. With the support of Genetec, we can offer a frictionless experience that does not compromise on security.”

WHEN IT COMES TO ACCESS CONTROL IN LINE WITH SECURITY STANDARDS, OUR CUSTOMERS ARE LOOKING FOR AUTO APPROVAL AND SELF-SERVICE.

on-site as backup or as art of projects. Both are access controlled and can be managed via ONEDC. “Staging rooms contain 3-phase power which allows customers to bring servers and supporting equipment into the staging areas to stage them and power them up prior to deploying them to the Data Hall,” says Dzienciol. “You can imagine if a customer is installing their infrastructure into 10-15 racks, that’s a lot of equipment. We purposely build our facilities with significant storage capacity to allow for these customer requirements, which is something many others don’t offer.”

As we go head towards Data Hall 1, we pass a Vesda unit – fire detection and control is a major factor of the site - we also pass the switch rooms – there’s no customer access to these core pieces of infrastructure. Other areas where access is highly restricted include high voltage areas such as power boards, transformers and the massive Penske diesel generators.

What’s telling about our tour is that by the time we reach Data Hall 1, we’ve gone through the front gate, been physically and verbally identified and fingerprinted in front of house, passed through the Gunnebo portals, through the second air lock, through the door to the corridor and from the corridor through another access controlled door to gain access to the Data Hall itself. Even after traversing these layers of security, we still can’t access the racks.

Inside Data Hall 1 are caged higher security, or C-Class racks which are more often than not requested by government departments and overseas organisations requiring authorised credentials to open cage doors before customers are faced with individually accessed-controlled racks. And while rack rows in the Data Hall can be traversed on foot; you need authorised credentials to open rack doors. Given the physical size of the site, there’s an enormous density of access control readers – every door to a rack is access controlled with HID readers – it’s mind-boggling stuff.

Seeing lines of access control readers stretching down the rack rows in the data centre halls also highlights the complexity of installation. Setting up and managing a system with so many access points and alarm/open/close/tamper inputs would have

WALKING THE NEXTDC SITE We head deeper into the data centre through the Gunnebo doors – these can be fitted with presence detection, single person detection, as well as metal and abandoned object detection technologies. In this case, access to the airlock is managed by HID SE Class 2 factor readers, featuring keypads, proximity reader and a biometric fingerprint reader.

Once through the Gunnebo door, which is specially configured to avoid tail gating, we go through another air lock door and out into the back of house corridors. On the way to view Data Hall 1, we take a look at the loading dock and the storage area, which allows customers to store equipment

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NEXTDC

been a time-consuming process. Then Dzienciol tells us there’s access control locking on the back of racks, as well as the front.

“Our rack locking technology is a significant part of our value proposition,” he explains. “Layers of access control are great but if the racks are all open and someone can reach the hardware then the data centre is not secure. Furthermore, if the layers of access are only accessible by physical keys, which is the way that many data centres structure their security, it severely inhibits the customer experience. That’s why we have gone to such lengths in our system design.

“Back locking of racks is important for maintenance – customers that can’t get to the data centre use our Remote Hands services to carry out hands-on work for them, such as restarting a server, reseating a network card, carrying out an audit – they simply use the ONEDC customer portal to unlock and relock the racks to allow engineers access to carry out work required,” Dzienciol says, demonstrating the app on his phone.

ONEDC is an access portal – it’s a browser-based interface where customers carry out access requests and log access tickets. The way the site is managed, a customer needs to log a ticket requesting guest or contractor access via ONEDC. That ticket is what the security team in front of house refers to before you they grant you access on arrival.

On the CCTV side, there’s coverage everywhere in the same general layers, with dome cameras at either end of the rack rows, cameras in corridors and all access points monitored – but it’s executed in a non-invasive manner. Same as in supermarkets, the presence of racks in data centre halls demands cameras be thoughtfully positioned. Infrastructure

OUR CHALLENGES REVOLVED AROUND HAVING DIFFERENT INTEGRATORS HANDLING DIFFERENT LOCATIONS WHEN IT CAME TO HARDWARE INFRASTRUCTURE.

on the ceiling is something else the security installers needed to work around. Cameras used are high specification domes with capabilities greater than required by the stable environment in which they are installed – it’s a sign of the importance that NEXTDC’s business places on the security protocols here.

Storage is epic in scale – NEXTDC has around 500TB of storage on average dedicated to CCTV surveillance at each of the sites and the cameras are recording at a minimum of 5MP resolution and at 15 frames per second with 90-day retention rates.

There are 2400 active cameras across the nine sites – that’s around 265 cameras per site, which is a significant number, again highlighting the importance of security to the operation.

“Some of our largest customers have service level agreements that dictate where we have CCTV and how we use it and we retain footage for up to 90 days to meet with some customer requirements,” Dzienciol says.

As we walk around Dzienciol points out that certain infrastructure is located above racks rather than under the floor. This costs less to implement and is easier to access for maintenance and upgrade, as well as being easier to monitor for security. He points out that the Vesda system also covers the data centre and is designed to activate in a very targeted way so fire suppression will put out the fire without impacting on the servers of nearby customers.

Another key aspect of the site is power redundancy and monitoring and that redundancy goes all the way down to rack level. NEXTDC employs hot aisle and cold aisle containments in its data centres – these are ways to design individual racks and rack rows to manage the process of cooling using passive means that can also enhance the efficiency of air conditioning. Given 60 per cent of data centre costs relate to cooling, these designs are important.

We also see another customer breakout facility within the site – it’s pretty neat, with coffee and kitchen facilities as well as games, an outdoor area and tables for dining – useful if you have a team on site undertaking a major project, or if you’re showing customers around. These facilities highlight NEXTDC’s drive to make the facility as open to the needs of customers as possible.

CHALLENGES With such a large site you’d expect to find serious challenges, but the application went smoothly, according to Dzienciol.

“Any build is complicated – security is just one element of building a data centre,” Dzienciol says.

“When it comes to security, because we went with Genetec from day one it was reasonably easy to add more sites. When we went to market 5 years ago, we felt Genetec was light years ahead in terms of work they are doing with airports, with virtualisation – the Genetec team is super focused.

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“Given this, our challenges revolved around having different integrators handling different locations when it came to hardware infrastructure.

This impacted on integration and ultimately meant we needed to go through a standardisation effort before we went to full federation. We’ve also had some government customers wanting SCEC designs applied to their particular areas in the data centre, so we’ve needed to stay on top of those customer requirements, too.”

Dzienciol says there is an ongoing operational challenge on the customer side.

“The important thing is making sure we are across new and growing client requirements - what they need, when they will be working on establishing or expanding their infrastructure in the data centre,” he explains. “This is impacted on by factors like whether they are a local company, a global company, whether they have a local partner or no partner at all. There’s an operational side to this as well. For instance, it’s good for the NEXTDC team to know when a customer’s maintenance windows are so this can be compared to the appearance of faults.”

Throughout the process NEXTDC has looked at video analytics.

“Some customers don’t want us to be going too far with video analytics while others would like us to use it,” Dzienciol says. “We’d be interested in analytics for license plate recognition to automate vehicle access control – we want analytics as a driver of efficiency. Face recognition is a consideration for people working remotely – we are looking to add that when we can. Another ongoing challenge is

moving some elements of our video surveillance solution to the cloud - we will continue looking at that as we grow.

“Something else we are planning to implement is more granular detail when it comes to where people are in the facility so if there’s an emergency, we know exactly how many people are on site and where everyone is. That’s going to be based on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth using the HID access control readers – having readers with these capabilities gives us a measure of future proofing.”

Unsurprisingly, Dzienciol says that managing its own infrastructure can be challenging for the NEXTDC team.

“We have about 100 racks nationally that are exclusively for our own infrastructure – we are faced with the same challenges as our customers in managing our maintenance and upgrade requirements,” he says. “The analogy we use to describe our business is a plane that’s always in the air. We can never shut down all the critical engines that fly the plane. This means the way we manage our infrastructure and plan our upgrades and maintenance windows needs to be handled meticulously. Along with our network and support infrastructure, we also need to stay on top of maintenance of security devices like cameras and we proactively monitor the Genetec system, including all the connected devices, including readers, access control infrastructure.”

Philippe Ouimette, director of strategic partnerships, Genetec, says Genetec’s history with NextDC made the process easier.

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● Case study

NEXTDC version of the software – Security Center 5.8 - which will include graphical maps,” he explains. “But, as David says, the ‘plane is always in the air, so that upgrade is a process where operational constraints must be balanced against the value-add of new features and other priorities.”

CONCLUSION

THIS A WORLD CLASS SITE – WE’VE WON SIGNIFICANT AWARDS – AND WE’VE HOSTED SOME OF THE BIGGEST COMPANIES IN THE WORLD AND BEEN TOLD OUR SITE IS YEARS AHEAD OF COMPETITORS. “The first data centre we did with NEXTDC was through a systems integrator in 2011 and since 2014 we have had much more direct collaboration to ensure they can leverage the security systems to inform and improve business operations,” he explains. “One of the things we like is that every time NEXTDC builds a new data centre they try to outdo themselves in terms of technology – they always try to do better for their customers. To meet their expectations for each new data centre, we sit down and examine the way they are managing their operations, consider the new Genetec features and functions that might help them run their operations better.

“We then help them implement the enhanced solution. The NEXTDC team is very open to using new technology if it allows them to deliver the best possible service to their customers. From a Genetec point of view, it’s enjoyable to work with a company like NEXTDC that is like-minded – we put 25 per cent of turnover into R&D and working with a customer hungry to implement our latest developments is great.”

At the same time, Ouimette says the greatest challenge of the NEXTDC application is finding ways to update and upgrade a live data centre management system.

“Using the Genetec Update Service, we can download and distribute upgrades to the entire Security Center environment. It eliminates timeconsuming, repetitive tasks, such as the need to manually deploy upgrades to each server and workstation, or the update of licenses. To minimize downtime, Security Center also offers the ability to deploy a failover server to maintain system functionality during the primary server’s upgrade.

“NEXTDC is in the process of updating to the latest

David Dzienciol, NEXTDC.

Dzienciol says customers and staff love the M2 facility, with its integrated security solution and clever management solutions.

“This a world class site – we’ve won significant awards – and we’ve hosted some of the biggest companies in the world and been told our site is years ahead of competitors - the customer experience, design and engineering, down to the cleanliness of the facility,” he says. “Our approach to security and the systems we deploy lead the industry also, and we are working to ensure this functionality is uniform across the country.

“Something we learned as we grew is that it gets harder as you grow – scaling, back-end systems, but we continue to invest in innovation and infrastructure. We’ve invested significantly in the customer experience. We spend an enormous amount of time speaking to customers – part of our company values is to be customer-first and we have worked hard to put the customer at the centre of our thinking. As such we have focussed intensely on building a single platform for our infrastructure - standardisation makes data centres easier to manage.

“In the future as part of our drive for standardisation across all our sites, we will move to a model where we are running the full access control model remotely – centralised in a network operation centre,” he says. “We are not quite there yet, but we are approaching the inflection point.”

Regardless of which model the business operates under Dzienciol says the most important thing for NEXTDC is enhancing and streamlining the customer experience.

“When NEXTDC launched, we wanted to deliver our customers the best level of resilience and redundancy, the highest levels of security, the most flexible and scalable services and the best customer experience money could buy. And it was important that we deliver that world-class service to organisations of all sizes, not just larger scale customers,” he says.

“We believe we have achieved our goal - only 10 years ago many organisations had their own data centre but no matter how big an organisation is, you can’t build a facility with this level of security and redundancy to support only 10 racks – the economies of scale simply don’t work, but our model helps them achieve it.

“Today, thanks to seamless operation and security management, our customers treat NEXTDC’s data centres as their own and our technology allows them go about their days and get what they need with little to no friction.” n

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● Product review

Saab

THE POWER OF ONE Saab OneView was born a custom PSIM and has evolved into a situational awareness engine that’s endlessly customisable and relentlessly expandable. The most difficult thing about a management solution with this much depth and lateral potential is trying to describe it in a paragraph.

IVEN the complexity of unpacking OneView conceptually, arguably the best way to explain the system is to explain what it does. Fundamentally, it’s an if/then business rules integration platform topped by a lightweight management system that sits above any collection of integrated sub systems and aggregates systemwide events to give profound situational awareness, quickfire response to unfolding events and complex reporting via a single portal. What’s going on in the background is so clever that demonstrations of the system contrive to make it appear simpler than it is only when you delve deeper do you realise just how much effort has gone into polishing, streamlining and securing the underlying processes that serve the OneView management software.

The list of sub systems that can be enfolded

by OneView is too long to go through completely but think detection, LPR, RFID, heartbeat, metal detection, locking, biometric, face recognition, lightning, fire, CCTV (camera/NVR/VMS), audio, alarm systems, intercom, gate, body scanner, lights, air conditioning, water supply, automation, GPS and microphonics from any manufacturer, along with anything else you need to deliver centralised (and remote) situational awareness. As Saab Australia’s

G

Brett Bertram points out, OneView isn’t just an interface, it’s an interface to everything.

“We don’t make an access system or a CCTV system – we are sub-system independent,” Bertram explains. “OneView will manage whatever systems you want it to manage. You can have 3 different CCTV systems, 2 access control systems and 5 alarm systems on your site and they will feed into OneView and all look and feel the same and be managed in the same way. You can also replace an underlying sub system, add a sub system – the look and feel and programming and functionality will not change.”

I got a demo of OneView at Saab Australia’s HQ in Adelaide and touring the site beforehand what hit me was that this company is steeped in defence – during my visit I saw the simulated bridge of a warship and references to the organisation’s development of command and control solutions for mission critical defence applications are everywhere. Something else that sticks out is that this is an engineering facility – the testing room and pre-commissioning spaces make this focus clear.

What you seen in these spaces is Saab engineers integrating electronic security and automation systems – many, many systems.

Given the company’s engineering focus it’s no surprise OneView was developed in Adelaide by members of a team that now numbers over 500.

While OneView was created for a Queensland prison, its successful implementation meant it quickly became the solution around which Saab Australia built an increasingly successful civil division contributing 30 per cent of its Australian turnover. While we can’t go too deeply into the sites where OneView has been implemented, the list includes many prisons, including the new Clarence Correctional Centre, as well as government applications like defence. And for some of these sites, OneView was configured, installed and commissioned by third party security integrators, a testament to the ease of install of the product.

“We have expanded the way we are bringing OneView to market,” explains Bertram. “For smaller sites we simply provide the software to third party installers – we will certify these installers to be competent in configuring and installing OneView – integrating it with all the sub systems they typically deliver. This means we are less hands-on in the smaller projects.

“Alternatively, we can provide a “turnkey” OneView system to a security integrator – the SI is responsible for delivering the complete security system and Saab provides the PSIM subsystem, we will buy PSIM hardware, provide the OneView element of the project fully configured to their customer’s requirements – as well as helping them

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BY J O H N A D A M S

commission the system across the entire site.

“The third way we will deliver OneView is that we will take on the security contractor role for larger and more complex sites – such as prisons – they need someone who can handle major projects and has considerable financial backing and the ability to undertake the level of management and engineering demanded by these larger more complex projects.

For instance, at the Clarence Correctional Centre, we are leading and using security installers to assist.”

Martin Hoffensetz (left) and Brett Bertram.

THE ONEVIEW SYSTEM Something that surprised me during my demo was that OneView isn’t just lateral operationally, it’s lateral everywhere else as well. There’s an elasticity to this solution - Bertram encapsulates best when he says he once visited a site running the system and didn’t recognise it. With OneView you don’t only swing in any sub systems you like and apply any rules you like, you apply any look you like and none of these changes alters the fact there’s a vast amount of data simmering away under the surface, waiting to inform.

“Fundamentally, OneView is designed like a huge graphics engine,” Bertram explains. “You can change the whole appearance of it – for one customer it looks one way, for another customer it will look completely different. Where things appear on screen, the business logic being applied to different types of alarms, the colours, the sounds – everything is totally configurable. For security integrators this means that instead of saying to the customer we can configure your system in one of 32 ways, they can

say how do you want your system to work – what do you want to be able to see, interact with, report on in order to be able to close out your events?”

There’s a simplicity to OneView operationally, too, and this is governed by the use of event popups that allow an operator complete control of an event from one location. It’s the sort of power you can only deliver with seamless access to dozens of subsystems.

“With OneView you can talk to any number of events from an event pop-up,” Bertram explains.

“Do you want to be able to type, run a report, pull up a camera, open a door, zoom in on a location.

The event pop-up can work in any way you want it to, same as the business logic and the graphics. You can also manage the resource and tasking engine in the same simple way. You can send tasks to security guards, track their location using mobile devices, you can send standard SOPs to a mobile device or in-vehicle PCs.”

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Saab

It makes sense that a system like OneView scales effortlessly, invisibly.

“After a OneView solution is deployed you can drop in another CCTV system and you don’t have to train an operator – it has no impact on the way the system works,” Bertram explains. “Same applies with adding an intercom – the system doesn’t even need to be turned off when you do it – there’s no down time. You can change the customer workflow, change graphics for a new building and then alter the popups to manage a new feature all while the system is live.”

In terms of its look, the mapping function shows the site, the buildings, multiple floors, cameras, devices, perimeter fences, intercoms and whatever else. As events come in there are audible and visual alerts – sirens come on and areas and floors in alarm are flooded red.

“Typically, the system is deployed with 3 screens – situational awareness screen, operational screen and normally a spot monitor – if the system is a master control it would normally have a video wall associated with it,” Bertram explains. “But all the work is done here in the mapping screen. The idea of multiple screens is that if you are zoomed in on a particular area you might lose focus on the rest of the site, so you can glance over here and see what’s going on.

“This screen is Google Earth style, zoom in zoom out mouse control so you can grab it, move around to an area, if you put all the icons up at the same time that would be crowded so what you are seeing is a transitioning graphic – some external doors and perimeter cameras – zoom in further and you can see changes from overview to architectural - now you can see doors. Go in further and you see devices like intercoms and cameras - you can configure when those transition points happen as you zoom in.”

During the demo what makes OneView a bit hard to corral in my head is that it seems to have no boundaries. How big is it? How big do you want it to be? How many systems does it integrate? How many systems do you need it to integrate? The key to comprehension, I decide, is that all this functionality is accessible, all the events are collated and available, not just from a single screen but from a single event pop-up that draws real time data from every subsystem in an integration.

In terms of the operating system, it’s Windows Server for the servers and Windows 10 for the client, with standard architecture underneath – it’s all industry standard hardware and software, with an SQL server in the background. The system can run virtualised if required. And it’s light on its feet, too.

Bertram says a measure of the system’s efficiency is speed and lack of latency with the graphics engine.

“A key differentiator of OneView is the speed of our graphics and our refresh time,” Bertram says, swirling the mouse around but provoking no

latency that I can see. It’s impressive to be able to do this with fully loaded graphical maps. Typically, you might lose a supporting web page or find icons getting confused about their state but there’s none of that going on here.

According to Bertram, many software manufacturers require monster graphics cards to stave off latency in these sort of fast-moving graphics applications. But OneView has no such requirement.

“You can see we are viewing this instance of OneView on that standard Dell laptop,” says Martin Hoffensetz, pointing to a tired-looking machine nearby. “We can do this because the graphics map is lightweight - bear in mind, too, this old laptop is running the server software and the client software.

It shows that OneView can down scale to be run on small laptops or desktop machines – you don’t need enterprise grade servers.

“At the same time OneView is lightweight, it’s powerful. We use vector-based graphics and can display every point in every part of the site, while competitors need to break their site maps up into areas. Our system is more efficient and has superior functionality.”

Another key aspect of OneView is cyber security.

“Our cyber security team is involved in the process of application – they look at the vulnerabilities of the systems that are connected to OneView,” Hoffensetz says. “This expands out into the network as well – how we can enable our clients. They have this inner shell with OneView but let’s harden the perimeter as well, increasing the layers of protection around all the data that’s being brought into the OneView system.

“Cyber security has been the focus of many of our discussions during the evolution of the product. The aggregation of data we are achieving with OneView means the system needs to be carefully protected. In a big converged network, there are all sorts of things floating around – patient records, financials, during network testing we find cross network passwords – these come down to the human element. It only takes one mistake and you’re vulnerable.”

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SEN1019_31.indd 1

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● Product review

Saab

DRIVING ONEVIEW Sitting in front of the demo screens you can’t help noticing just how clean the interface is and how shallow the water seems to be between the GUI and the sub systems underneath – there’s no deep diving here. When Bertram stops wheeling multi-level site maps through 360 degrees, he starts dipping in and out of disparate functionalities with one click between the functions of unrelated systems using hot buttons.

“You can have as many of these hot buttons as you need and they take an operator to different areas quickly when they are not managing events via pop-ups,” Bertram explains. “Wherever they go in the system, operators can zoom right in – you can see that yellow box showing the zoom level to help operators navigate. They can also use the same small box to move around a complex site map quickly (it’s a useful feature, this). Then there are configurable hot buttons – take me to cell block 1, take me to cell block 2, to the loading dock, the gatehouse, etc.

“And now I’m at the gatehouse I can open a door, view a camera, look at video from the video intercom and communicate through it, adjust the volume of the intercom. At this site there’s an interlock on these 2 doors in the gatehouse – I can drive that interlock, opening one door and then the other. These are the sorts of logic and PLC-driven actions that access control systems struggle with but because we’re a huge if/then rules engine it’s easy for us.”

Bertram hops back into the main building through a hot button and zooms into the ground floor.

“If I click on this door you’ll see a camera pop up with a ring around it that shows it’s associated with the door – there might be more than one camera associated with a door – that video can be thrown to a video wall or a spot monitor with a click – it depends on how the customer wants the system to work,” he explains.

“If it’s a PTZ you can load presets in as well.

Meanwhile, the mobile app will show duress alarms – supervisors and security officers can get instructions with attached video or images from

THANKS TO THE ALARM BAR, OPERATORS KNOW THAT THE HIGHEST PRIORITY ALARM RIGHT NOW IS THE ONE BEING PRESENTED TO THEM.

the control room, or they can send images back to operators of things they see – video audio – whatever you need it to be. That, too, can go to spot monitors or a video wall.

“We can also isolate a point – say it’s a camera.

When the next operator comes along, they can click and be zoomed straight in on the camera – view the scene, make a comment, bring the camera back into service. Or if they get a call from a tech telling them an isolated camera issue has been resolved, they can bring that camera back into service with a click.”

Making movement between functions easier, it’s possible to go back via arrows to anything an operator has been doing – this makes moving around inside a live system where work might be interrupted by a priority event much simpler.

Another solid feature is the alarm bar.

“Look here,” Bertram says, clicking. “Imagine in the background all the current alarm events. What this alarm bar does is present those alarms by priority.

This means that instead of letting an operator select what they want to address in an event log, the system feeds operators the oldest, highest priority unacknowledged alarm predetermined by business logic.

“Thanks to the alarm bar, operators know that the highest priority alarm right now is the one being presented to them – they click the alarm, zoom into the area, view footage, make a comment, acknowledge the alarm and the next highest priority alarm appears in the alarm bar. It’s fast because operators are not waiting for graphics to load – events of all kinds are fed in the order they should.

Might be an intrusion sensor, might be water, might be fire alarms, might be a roof alarm.”

It’s increasingly clear that what you get with a system like this is the power to undertake area wide, site-wide and system-wide actions.

“If you want to make a PA broadcast you can just select the buildings you want to interface to – in this case it’s to Jacques – you can select one area, 2 buildings, or select all,” Bertram explains. “You just speak into a single microphone and address all the areas you need to address.

“Another strong feature is the ability to track staff location through mobile devices – the system comes up with details, what equipment they are carrying, whether they are busy. If there’s a medical emergency the closest available officer with the required skillset will be directed to the scene – it’s an example of the logic layer being placed over the device layer.”

Another capability of the system is to have multiple OneView clients around the site which allow management to be delegated.

“In prisons someone will come in and take control of a building during the day – the master control will see when this supervisor is connected and will hand over to that operator,” Bertram explains. “When they do, the entire building will turn blue in the main

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Saab

control room, which means all the alarms, intercom calls and other events will go to that remote operator and will only escalate back to central control if incidents are not responded to in a set time.”

At this point, Hoffensetz drops anchor between the user interface and the background functionality.

“It’s very easy to change between levels, as you can see,” he explains. “While it seems simple, in the background OneView is interrogating one or more underlying VMS systems, grabbing the necessary supporting footage to show an alarm event. What this means for operators is that there’s no search function to activate – the video is all there and ready to play. The graphics engine represents everything that’s underneath it and the business logic is built into the system.

“OneView is marketed as a PSIM – and that’s what it is operationally - but more fundamentally, it’s an integration platform and we have a bunch of software engineers that can integrate almost any third-party IP device to it. That means OneView can support anything from complicated proprietary applications combining 10 subsystems all the way up to cloud-based smart city projects needing to integrate large groups of devices from different systems in different locations to provide operational actionable data.”

It takes me a while to notice that we’re not looking at a typical VMS interface when we view cameras – instead we’re getting at them through mapping, hot buttons and pop-ups.

“This works so well because we do everything through business logic and operators can move around very quickly,” Hoffensetz explains. “But you can also have particular cameras on a video wall, you can assign cameras to areas and you can click on an area and it will bring that area’s cameras up.

You can define the way a video wall works as well.

For instance, all the perimeter alarms could go to the top left and all duress alarms could go to the bottom right.

“All this and everything else is configurable via the OneView Configuration Tool. It’s also possible if there’s an alarm event, to request playback in the

popup and the system will find all the cameras that had a view of the scene at that time and play them back during the actioning of an alarm event.”

It’s surprising how much control and how much information is centralised in this one interface, I point out. “And it doesn’t feel over complicated – you’re not mining data when you drive it.

“From this desktop everything the operator needs to touch to do their job is to hand – could be SCADA, could be process control,” agrees Bertram. “If a popup arrives with an alarm it can be actioned and closed out without the need to go to another piece of software or another place in the management system – there will be a common desktop, a common keyboard, a common microphone – some sites only use a mouse. There’s no jumping from system to system or device to device.

“Normally with an event operators would have to search the VMS, search the access control solution and then cobble a narrative together but with OneView that narrative is always there, all the time, in the OneView Journal, which is a collation of the event logs of every connected sub system. Every event and every operator action, including comments about alarm events and right there.

“Operators can include data from the OneView Journal in reports that may be pre-configured or created on the fly, and they don’t lose those reports or any underlying information when they change versions of the software, as happens in many access control solutions. The system has very powerful reporting that is highly efficient – users love that.”

“The system also a dashboard which allows operators to analyse key parameters and trends visually. And we are also working on supplementing this with powerful data analytics capabilities in the near future.

The takeaway from my demo of OneView is lowtouch, high-power operations. This system seems so intuitive that afterwards I feel I could drive a complex prison application myself. OneView is like that. You might delve deep, or you might let it tell you what it needs you to know. Regardless, more information is only a click away. n

FEATURES OF SAAB ONEVIEW INCLUDE: l Site security situational awareness l Security system integration l Prioritised alarm handling l Integrated system log l Comprehensive audit/reporting l Integrated operator interface lH ighly configurable layouts/business rules/

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l Powerful system-wide OneView Journal

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www.hikvision.com.au 25/9/19 12:53 pm

● Special report

Airport Security

SECURING AIRPORTS There’s something frightening about airport and airline security – the multiplicity of technologies, the disparate manpower and response teams with their proprietary chains of command, the issue of size - the bigger the airport, the greater the traffic of aircraft and passengers.

HINK about the operational imperatives of airports for a moment. All the hardlearned fundamentals of single-site onion skin protection, high security lock-downs and rigorous access control policy fall apart in the face of the modern airport-mall with its odd pockets of outside/inside retailing, wide open lobbies, multifarious approaches, vast perimeters, sterile side accessible to thousands of contractors and impossible hours of operation.

Overwhelming everything are the people – tens of thousands of them every day – flooding what must be protected spaces – entitled to access most of the facility and as passengers able to stand right at the cockpit door. Where they’re not, you’ve got staff – thousands of staff – and hundreds of contractor delivery vehicles a day, with each airline choosing its own suppliers on the basis of their own needs.

Now let’s throw in an adjacent domestic terminal, carparks for 20,000 vehicles, multiple taxi ranks smack in front of arrival and departure lounges, a

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BY J O H N A D A M S

train station, a bus terminal, engineering workshops, public access streets and a panoply of service facilities linked by closed service roads strung out across far flung spaces. Here is the sort of seething security solution that must be micro-managed by the minute.

When you consider the nature of airports one thing is clear to see. Airport security is a balancing act that pits convenience, commerce and access control against each other in a bid to ensure all possible elements of doubt are removed in the least possible, most profitable time. If this sounds impossible that’s because it very nearly is. Consider that a single failure in one of an airport’s security layers could be devastating, yet screening processes must be undertaken at the highest possible speeds while offering most passengers a dangerously high level of personal privacy.

What combination of physical attributes and electronic security measures works best in an airport? Let’s think back to the onion model and its concentric layers but don’t necessarily apply this single model to the entire site – think about elements of the airport singly and apply layered security levels to each of these elements. Before we move on, it’s vital to point out that on a high security site like an airport the most important element of the electronic security solution is manpower response.

In all cases, technology supports response and in an airport you need 24x7 monitoring on site and onsite patrols standing by for the fastest possible reaction times.

When you break an airport down into constituents it’s clear there are parts you can lock down – much of its perimeter if budget is available for technology and quick response. You’ll need to secure all the remote buildings dotted around the perimeter so hopefully they are linked by fibre. Physical security with electronic monitoring of boundary lines should provide a tight seal and access points should be minimized and controlled using gatehouses and an integrated access solution delivering situational awareness.

The least expensive and most capable electronic perimeter security method is day/night/thermal cameras working on fixed lines and supported by video analytics. Ground radar is solid, too, and delivers awesome detection range. If there’s a problem with video analytics on big sites it’s going to be lighting. Lights are expensive and their loom can compete with landing and navigation lights – you’ll need to think about thermal and IR, where possible.

Alternative perimeter detection techniques like reliable and highly selective trenched leaky coax are going to be too expensive for a massive perimeter like an airport but microwave and AIRs could support a tighter internal boundary and support areas of approach inside the external perimeter.

Another alternative is a zoned fibre optic detection solution integrated into the fenceline. Electric fencing is ideal where required.

We’ve mentioned access control already and it’s

WHILE MANY AIRPORTS DO NOT INCORPORATE HIGH SECURITY BOUNDARIES INCORPORATING EARTH WALLS AND SLIDING GATES OR RISING BARRIERS, THEY SHOULD.

vital we go into it a little more thoroughly before moving on. A high security site like an airport needs an integrated access control solution managed and monitored from a single control point. Security managers need to know all the comings and goings in the back of house areas of their airports. That means all airlines, all related facilities on the site, all entry points, and all staff and contractors passing through the controlled access points of the airport, must be authorized by a single access control solution. This same solution needs to manage alarms – both access point alarms and intrusion detection.

There’s another element of access control worth mentioning – high security gates. While many airports do not incorporate high security boundaries such as earth walls, sliding gates and rising barriers, they should. Flimsy boom gates will not prosecute an access control policy that demands, at least on paper, that no unauthorized vehicle be allowed access into a site under any circumstances.

In our ideal airport, local road access will be limited, with a single multi-lane road coming in and a single multi-lane road going out. Service roads will only be accessible through manned gatehouses to vehicles authorized by the central access solution or strictly supervised by security officers. Pedestrian areas will be protected with barriers and bollards.

A single one-way loop of roadway will carry traffic to and from departure and arrival lounges

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Airport Security

TERRORISTS WALKED IN WITH THEIR LUGGAGE, JOINED QUEUES AND DETONATED THEIR BOMBS.

and carparking facilities will be away from the main airport structure. Keeping all vehicles away from airport terminals requires good design. Pick up and set down areas and taxi ranks invariably wind up right out the front – as they should for the sake of passenger convenience but it is possible to put distance between terminal and vehicles.

Importantly, there will be no front of house deliveries to retailers or eateries inside the terminal, with a separate dock and warehousing facility putting distance between heavy traffic and the vulnerable glass structures that invariably constitute the main airport building.

Unfortunately for most security managers, arrival and departure lobbies are vast – enormous barns with distances so great they can defy certain aspects of CCTV surveillance like face recognition and video analysis. The challenge is to install cameras that can do 2 jobs – they need to get a general view of a massive area and yet provide close-ups of faces and walkways. It’s not an easy brief – especially on a restricted budget.

Surveillance is easier with a somewhat smaller terminal with a clear pedestrian traffic path and a strong division between lobby, sterile concourse and restricted areas. Ideally you need to project video surveillance out of the terminal and use it to monitor approaching traffic – even to the point of checking license plates for stolen or high risk vehicles using video analysis. Another possibility is building a traffic lay-off so suspicious vehicles could be checked by security patrol teams on the way towards the terminal. There’s also a challenge related to unattended parking – the FAA is stipulating 300m for highest security, but this poses a problem for getting baggage and passengers to terminals easily and quickly.

We’d be thinking about low overpasses or walkways on approaches to a terminal that physically deny larger vehicles access to the facility. The damage caused by the truck bombing in Oklahoma compared to use of a van in a terror attack at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, shows the variation.

The truck bomb tore the Oklahoma building apart while the embassy bombing smashed windows and left the building standing.

Security screening poses questions. Should we locate it where passengers arrive to protect the terminal hall, or should screening take place after passengers have checked their luggage in and are inside the hall? This is a challenge as the Belgium airport bombings clearly showed. In that case, terrorists walked in with their luggage, joined queues and detonated their bombs. The check in procedure distributes passengers and their guests across a wider area and in the extreme event of a terrorist attack, this distribution spells safety. Heavier concentrations of people are a greater risk. An option is to employ face recognition software to search crowds pre-screening for known felons, but such technology would not detect lone wolves who had not been convicted of any crime.

Airport security hinges on the passenger screening process. It’s a process that allows passengers who are unknown to the organization to be admitted to a sterile concourse. Screening is essentially an access control process that focuses on authorizing passengers and visitors by establishing that they pose no serious threat. It’s achieved by checking for metal objects, weapons and explosives at a series of entry screening stations that separate the front of house areas from the sterile concourse and arrival and departure lounges. A protected airport has its food court and retail areas tucked away behind these screening points.

The advantage of this layout is that retail staff must also pass through the screening process or through high security access entry points, considerably raising security levels. Another advantage is that this configuration encourages passengers to spend the least possible time in the unsecure area – passengers check in, are quickly screened and pass into the safe sterile zone. n

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● Special report

CCTV

MEGAPIXEL LENS CONSIDERATIONS Most cameras have resolutions of at least 720p and some are 29MP, while sensor sizes are growing – the 1/3-inch sensor is too small for megapixel performance. The changes mean installers can’t go for the lowest cost lenses but getting megapixel lens selection right is a challenging business.

HERE’S more to think about than focal length with megapixel camera lenses.

You need to consider lens resolution, iris control, aperture, IR capability, depth of field, as well as sensor size. There are also more nebulous considerations, including the quality of the lens.

This is much tougher to pin down than you’d think.

Manufacturers of high-resolution CCTV cameras always seem to install pro-grade consumer lenses worth thousands on them – why? Many modern CCTV lenses are made of plastic, not glass, and despite their apparently equal high specifications, some types of lenses perform better than others on

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BY J O H N A D A M S

objective tests due to aberrations that specifications cannot show. That means you need to test lens types – you can’t just buy a lens with the right specification and kid yourself it’s the best of the best.

Do MP lenses matter? You sometimes hear people say that the highest MP camera sensors have ‘out-resolved’ the lenses installed on them but this is difficult to test accurately and there’s a degree of subjectivity that is inevitable relating to human ocular acuity. Software testing is required.

Something else to bear in mind is that mid-quality lenses are not built to support the maximum resolutions of the highest resolution sensors.

Certainly, when it comes to smaller format sensors, cameras can be limited by lens resolution.

At the same time, however, a smaller lens allows applications that are closer to the diffraction limit in low light applications because smaller lenses can be more easily corrected. This is advantageous in the real world. In comparison, larger format sensors of 2/3-inch and 1-inch are much closer to the diffraction limit and are harder to correct.

Something else to bear in mind at the cutting edge of sensor and lens performance is that photon shot noise is still going to present an insuperable performance barrier to a CCTV camera’s absolute performance. Then there’s the circle of confusion (CoC) – the point at which the human eye can no longer resolve detail.

Just to complicate matters, more recent thinking suggests the CoC has been greatly exaggerated and the human eye is a much better instrument than was thought. In the past it was considered humans could not resolve more detail than 7 lines per millimetre, but it’s now thought the eye can handle 14 lines per millimetre, or even more. In any case, detail in a scene is never about a single bright or dark spot on a screen – it’s about collections of details.

DETAIL IN A SCENE IS NEVER ABOUT A SINGLE BRIGHT OR DARK SPOT ON A SCREEN – IT’S ABOUT COLLECTIONS OF DETAILS.

are constant. Outside you need auto iris types.

Then there’s depth of field. This is controlled by the size of the iris – the smaller the iris the more foreground and background is visible in a scene.

But make the iris too small and it’s time for a little diffraction – which will hamper image quality. When a lens opens in low light it reduces its depth of field.

Meanwhile, P-iris lenses are designed to use the lens iris, software and camera gain to tweak the image depending on light levels. This works well in bright light where a standard auto iris would close down, leading to blurring of the image. Conversely, in low light, a p-iris will limit opening and increase camera gain to retain as much depth of field as possible.

Aperture defines the level of light that a given lens can pass to the sensor as its f number. The lower the number, the greater the light level that can travel through the lens to the sensor. A good low light lens is f/1.0 and will be manufactured using the best glass.

Better lenses have been custom made for specific applications. You need better lenses for areas with constant or periodic low light. But fast lenses can be challenged by strong backlight – so much so the incamera WDR functions can be overwhelmed. And closed apertures mean blur.

Something else to consider is IR correction. This is needed because lenses bend different wavelengths of light in different ways. Again, use an IR-corrected lens if you need the best night performance. And installers need to take into account lens resolution or sharpness. Lens resolution is measured as lines per millimetre, the more lines per mm, the better the lens performance. Megapixel lenses are said by some to need more than 120 lines per millimetre – and a lens ‘resolution’ must double that of the sensor for it to do well. Resolution can also vary across a lens – the edges of a scene are the most challenging areas to get good resolution.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER

WHAT MAKES A GOOD IMAGE?

Lens-mount type is less of an issue than it used to be. Most CCTV cameras use a CS-type lens mount and there are adaptors if required. Another key consideration is lens size, which needs to be properly matched to sensor size. If the lens is too small there will be a black ring around a scene. From the point of view of installers, lens diameter needs to be the same size as the sensor, or larger. Typical CCTV camera sensors can be ¼-inch, ½-inch, 2/3inch, and even 1-inch.

Varifocal lens options need to be considered carefully. These aren’t like zoom lenses which automatically adjust the magnification they give to light reaching the sensor. Instead they need to be focused manually. Just like the human eye, the iris controls the level of light that reaches the sensor. There are a range of iris types available from manufacturers. Some cameras are fixed iris, some are manual, some are automatic and some are p-iris.

You need to match camera and lens types. Typically, you use fixed and varifocal types where light levels

When it comes to camera performance, the underlying standard is assumed but never defined.

According to camera manufacturers, camera images are ‘crystal clear’, ‘astounding’, revolutionary, or ‘brilliant’. But what do these descriptors mean

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● Special report

CCTV

in context – what constitutes a great image? Most of us know that resolution is a key aspect of image quality (lines per millimetre when it comes to lenses) but it’s not the only one, as our eyes so often tell us when we compare camera performance side by side. Resolution and contrast together give images clarity. Meanwhile, sharpness is a measure of the definition of the edges of details in an image and is determined by edge contrast. Other things to consider are resolving power (resolved lines per mm), while acutance measures sharpness along a gradient curve.

Modulation transfer functions (MTF) are another objective measure of image quality and are a combination of resolution and contrast. They are math-based expressions of the light signal passed by the lens to the sensor. This signal has special and temporal frequency and amplitude – frequency is the number of signal repetitions, amplitude is the difference between maximum and minimum signals.

At all times a lenses resolution is limited by increasing diffraction as the iris is closed and by lens aberrations which impact on focal length as well as on the amount of light reaching the sensor.

Diffraction is a phenomenon that is impossible to side-step. It occurs when you close the aperture of an iris and photons of light pass through the narrower opening under pressure. Diffraction impacts on resolution and contrast.

Complicating what is an already complicated science are Airy disks. These are the bright centres of the light focused by the lens. Airy disks are surrounded by an Airy pattern – a series of circles, bright, then dark, then bright, then dark, that are focussed around them. At the edge of the focused pattern is the area of least light. When you open the aperture of a lens, the Airy disks decrease in size.

There are also lens aberrations to contend with and how these are dealt with depends on the level of resolution and contrast a given lens design attenuates as its iris closes. Aberrations that increase as the aperture is opened include field curvature, astigmatism, spherical aberrations, and others.

Each of these aberrations distorts the Airy disks in a specific way.

What challenges lenses is keeping all details they transmit at full contrast – with everything black being black and everything white being white. There is always some level of loss and as details get finer there comes a point where a lens reaches a point it can no longer discern contrast and detail is lost. It’s worth bearing in mind that the level of contrast a camera system can display in relation to a given scene at a particular light level determines human perception of image quality.

Part of the trouble is that there are so many variables. When it comes to video surveillance, a great deal of hardware and software combines to make a networked ‘camera system’. Format sizes impact on potential image quality, as do the aberrations of a given lens or iris. Different manufacturers set up their cameras to offer different things to different users. One camera may be optioned for low light performance, one for backlight. Another might be a generalist.

The fact manufacturers put a lot of processing onto an image stream via the camera engine and its firmware also needs to be taken into account. Some on-camera engineering solutions enhance image streams very well, others are less successful. Then there are compression types, variable comms paths, noise generated by increasing gain in decreasing light, backlight, the impact of supporting IR, and on and one it goes.

You need to be thinking about more than just the absolute potential resolution of a lens. Overall lens quality impacts on the perfection of iris systems, the absence of aberrations in a design, the ability of the lens to display contrast in high resolutions and with low levels of light. A higher quality lens will be superior in these and other ways. When it comes to selecting lenses for megapixel cameras, installers should rely on testing of lenses to ascertain the properties they most value. Whether this is done somewhat subjectively with the naked eye or measured objectively on an oscilloscope or using specialised test software, site testing will allow you to assess which lenses best suit your application. n

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Residential & commercial connectivity for a

Smarter Home & Office Intrusion

CCTV

Access Control

is now distributing a range of smart, connected solutions for the home or office Visit the website at www.sourcetechnologies.com.au to find out more

For a true solution provider, you can rely on Source Technologies.

SEN_SourceTechnologies_AD.indd 1 SEN1019_43.indd 1

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Proudly brought to you by

● Regulars

Monitoring

Your Monitoring Specialists

1300 130 515

www.bensecurity.com.au

Making The Grade

GRADE A1 monitoring stations are designed to provide the utmost physical security along with full redundancy across a range of support systems, ensuring customers have the best possible response and infrastructure protection.

RADE A1 monitoring stations ensure that no matter what, alarm systems will continue to be monitored effectively under virtually any circumstances. It’s not just physical attack on a building that these facilities are designed to resist. Everything from outbreaks of fire, loss of power, failure of communications and the comfort and wellbeing of operators is considered. The upshot is a tough monitoring solution that, especially when combined with multiple reporting paths, will defy almost any attempts to disrupt it.

There are a number of different elements to a typical Grade A1 monitoring station, the first we’ll look at is the physical structure of the facility. It’s not typically something you’d think about, but the Grade A1 specification is the perfect starting point for specifying any standalone high security structure. Grade A1 stations are tough. Specs demand walls and ceilings of 228mm bonded brick, 152mm bonded concrete 152mm pre-cast concrete slabs and in the case of double brick structures, 2 separate brick layers each of 100mm thickness with a 30mm cavity. Not only this, these walls cannot be external walls but must reside within the confines of a larger structure – this means yet another layer of protection is incorporated into the Grade A1 monitoring facility.

An important aspect of Grade A1 central station design relates to doors and openings in the shell. The entry points permitted are restricted to inner and outer entrance doors, emergency exits, vents and service openings. As far as the inner and outer entrance doors are concerned, we’re talking about a mantrap with an

G

outer door of 50mm hardwood and carbon sheet steel facing, incorporating no-lift inboard hinges – the door opening outwards.

The inner entrance door opens into the mantrap and both inner and outer doors in the mantrap have to be linked to the access control system and operated using an electric lock which itself has the ability to resist forces in excess of 6.6kN applied at any point on the door’s surface.

Outward opening emergency exits and service doors must be built to the same specifications as the main entrance to the mantrap.

This physical structure must be protected by an alarm system that monitors external access points in the host building and video surveillance and 2-way audio must allow operators to communicate with the front entrance point of the facility.

Also important is fire protection incorporating an automatic sprinkler system, appropriate extinguishers and fire hose reels. Part of a Grade A1 central station’s emergency must be respiratory protection gear able to support the central station’s operators for 10 minutes.

Something end users should think about with central stations is whether or not they are able to function in the event of catastrophic system failure which sees the entire station go down. Modern integrated systems are more vulnerable to this sort of failure than many people think. It’s vital that key servers be duplicated and that there are contingency plans that allow a monitoring station’s customer to be swung over to another provider or location should this be required.

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Proudly brought to you by

Your Monitoring Specialists

1300 130 515

www.bensecurity.com.au

COMMUNICATIONS CHANNELS

Door to a control room.

A vital part of the Grade A1 central station relates to communication systems - not just those that allow the station to stay in touch with its customers but those that ensure operators have fast access to police and to another Grade A1 monitoring station. You want redundancy in the event the station goes off-line so be sure to check this support is available.

This second station monitors for duress, alarm events and dead-man expiry with fast polling. Along with this, Grade A1 stations must have primary and secondary ways to maintain bi-directional comms with manned gatehouses on the sites they’re monitoring. This is an important aspect of an overall monitoring package for large end users who may not wish to have a complete local alarm monitoring package installed on site. Comms gear includes voice recording equipment that’s able to record all operational telephone calls by time and date so conversations can be retrieved in the event of a dispute between end users and monitoring station staff.

Alarm indication and recording equipment is a vitally important element of the modern central station and it will be computer-based, stored in mirrored locations on a highly secure LAN and must allow operators a complete interface with customer contact details, history, along with site maps and graphics. Alarms arriving at operator workstations must be reported visually and audibly and they’ll be prioritized as well. That means a panic button at a service station takes precedence over an alarmed fire exit door that’s been opened from the inside at 5.05pm on a working day.

On the other side of this operator interface reside storage solutions and the comms paths to the outside world and these may represent a large number of possible options including dialler, direct line, GSM, GPRS, satellite and Internet comms.

Selecting a communications path is a big decision and you’ll need to devote some time to doing so. A good Grade A1 station will offer multiple comms technologies but depending on its business relationships, you might be limited to a particular suite of products. Check what these are first to make sure they cover your needs – this applies to video monitoring, too. n se&n 45

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● Case study

Recife

DAHUA PROTECTS SUBWAY Integrator Avantia has installed a 1380-camera Dahua CCTV solution to help protect the 71km subway system of Recife in Brazil with a new video surveillance solution that incorporates video analytics and comprises nearly 1400 CCTV cameras.

ECIFE’S urban trains system carries around 400,000 passengers a day – it is the third largest railway operator in number of users in Brazil. To ensure a safe journey for passengers, it was imperative to increase the subway security with modern technologies and monitoring equipment.

The main challenge was to adapt the technology to the specific conditions such as lighting, people flow and speed of a subway station while not interrupting the transportation service. Therefore, ease of operation, installation and high availability of the system were prerequisites for choosing the surveillance solution.

Companhia Brasileira de Trens Urbanos (Brazilian Urban Trains Company, CBTU) inaugurated a new phase the surveillance operation with the acquisition of 1380 high-resolution cameras from Dahua Technology. The system has Dahua embedded video analytics monitoring points at 52 locations across the networks. There are 4 Dahua cameras used in the application including the DH-IPC-HF5231EN-

R

Z-S2; DH-IPC-HF5231EN-S2; DH-IPC-HDBW8231E-ZS2; and DH-SD65F230FN-H – all equipped with H.265 compression and video analytics and Starlight low light capabilities.

These features have enhanced the safety and security of the Central and Southern lines of the Pernambuco Subway and allowed the operators to obtain detailed views of the subway operations, especially at peak hours or during tourist events, such as Carnival.

Day and night, under difficult lighting conditions and even in points with extreme low light, Dahua Starlight cameras deliver images to the surveillance center to guarantee the best performance in conditions of very low luminosity (0.005 Lux).

According to Avantia’s operational director, Hamilton Valentin the partnership with CBTU has been very successful.

“Due to the peculiarities of the implementation of the security system, this was a major deployment challenge, since all the systems of the stations were in full operation,” Valentin explains. “Successful commissioning was the result of an outstanding team effort with the full support and partnership of the client, so that the implementation would occur in the best way possible and with minimal interventions in the subway system.”

The new video surveillance system was designed to operate with a centralized management, which differs completely from the previous singlemanagement model. This allowed better use of the human resources of the security team at the 37 stations. The new cameras make it possible to identify suspects and trigger maintenance services in a more agile way, minimising impact on operations.

Video footage of incidents can be shared with police which, if necessary, can conduct searches in the image database and use resources such as zoom to capture details that help in the investigations.

The operators themselves can also alert authorities directly, depending on the incident.

“The cameras are monitored centrally in a dedicated control room,” says Leonardo Villar Beltrão – CBTU Recife superintendent. “This will lead to a cost reduction for the company as we are able to reduce local surveillance at some subway stations. But the great advantage will be seen in the enhanced safety of our passengers.

“Images from the system help us identify crimes in stations and quickly get this information to law enforcement. Although we are still in the implementation phase of smart technology, results are being seen. We have already managed to identify suspects who have been arrested by police. We are employing all efforts to train and hire new agents and I am sure we will achieve greater gains in the future.” n

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H5A Camera Line Analytics that Help Bring Your Attention to the Most Important Events

The H5A camera line features our next-generation video analytics technology to help focus your attention on potentially critical events, providing a smarter and more powerful video security solution from the moment you set it up.

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avigilon.com/h5a | asksales@avigilon.com * With manufacturing facilities in both the United States and Canada, our “Made in America” claim only applies to products from our Plano, Texas facility.

Images and user interfaces have been simulated for illustrative purposes. © 2019, Avigilon Corporation. All rights reserved. AVIGILON and the AVIGILON logo are trademarks of Avigilon Corporation. Other names and logos mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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● Special report

Education

SECURING SCHOOLS & UNIVERSITIES

Securing educational facilities like schools and universities is particularly challenging. Yet the open/closed nature of these sites offers security professionals an opportunity to leverage the latest technologies to deliver the greatest possible performance without imposing the restrictions typical on high security sites.

HERE’S no doubt that educational facilities like schools and universities, represent some of the most complex electronic security integrations around. These are sites which are open to the communities they serve and the ethos that underpins them is at odds with gated high security. The challenge for security managers, security consultants and integrators is conceiving, designing, implementing and managing these sites in a way that gives students and members of the community the greatest possible freedom of access, as well as the highest possible levels of security and safety.

Alongside these difficulties are the prevalence of very large sites, multiple remote sites, complex infrastructure, huge access control databases, a diversity of sub systems that would make the best integrators head spin and often times, a pinched budget that demands integrators find creative ways to offer more performance with less stuff.

According to Brett Hansen of Milestone Systems, the requirements for multi-level use across campuses mean that complex integrations apply to applications such as enrolments, libraries, security, health and safety and student experience.

“These requirements are often spread across various stakeholders as well, from student faculty, security, administration and more,” he says. “In some cases, particularly in universities, these campuses are like a small operational city, monitoring traffic, pedestrian flow, retail and hospitality.

“In these applications student safety is paramount - to ensure students are able to study in a safe environment. Safety, in turn, has a flow-on effect to student retention rates and ultimately, a successful institution. Educational institutions have

T

a requirement to show a high level of confidence in their facilities and demonstrate that they are able to provide a safe environment as well as being agile enough to adopt mechanisms to deal with new threats and risks as they emerge.

“We also see applications being sought to extend the pursuit of a greater, more seamless student experience. These are being tested in proof of concepts and applied to ensure that enrolments and student safety are being managed effectively and efficiently.”

A particular challenge of schools and universities is their inherent nature. They are special environments and tend to be open to parents, visitors and the community. This makes it hard to balance the internal contradictions such open environment poses to security procedures.

It says technology has the ability to make open environments more secure without imposing constraints.

“There’s no doubt that on these sites the challenge is providing a secure and effective solution while

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BY J O H N A D A M S

making the institution accessible,” he says. “These key factors must be considered when applying technologies to mitigate security risks and need to be addressed right from the early planning phase of a deployment.

“Particularly challenging in these applications is finding the most effective end-to-end solution that fulfils all of the stakeholder requirements while meeting budget.”

When it comes to the core security system in university applications, it says a combination of CCTV and access control is vital, but he argues best results come from solutions that are tightly integrated, offering an end-to-end total security solution that ensures both physical security and surveillance.

“We are seeing increased interest in new technologies – those that promote situational awareness are the key,” it says. “Schools and campuses require the tools to allow them to make rapid, well-informed decisions. These tools come in many forms, from analytics through to hardware

integrations and a platform that accommodates IOT devices.

“Meanwhile, operators require functionality that empowers situational awareness while maintaining ease of use and they also need functionalities that enable effective partnerships with manned security teams. This is very important as, with the right tools, the manned security teams are made more effective in their day-to-day operational duties.”

According to it, the powerful networks and strong IT capabilities of many universities make life easier for forward thinking security managers wanting to take services in virtual or cloud environments.

“These networks provide more freedom to apply smarter analytics and solutions,” he explains.

“However, applications and hardware are also becoming more efficient on the edge and can also nowadays accommodate limited bandwidth, which extends functionality right across a campus.

“Given the centrality of networks, cyber security awareness is extremely important. Universities and schools seek applications that are effective

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● Special report

Education

in a physical security sense, but this is futile if the network is not hardened.

Something that’s a challenge with any large site is the presence of past investment and the impact it has on what can be done with new technology and how quickly it can be done. But Hansen says moving forward in stages is possible.

“This can be accommodated with the right solution, one that allows a school or university to migrate gradually from legacy technologies to the latest and greatest solutions,” he explains. “Getting it right means providing a more flexible approach to meeting stakeholder requirements, while addressing budgetary and logistical restraints.”

Sam Afzali of Gallagher Security says there are a number of reasons educational facilities are so complex.

“It’s a case of multiple systems and interaction points such as student registration, staff/HR or contractor management systems,” he explains.

“There are often external groups co-located within the campus for research and similar academic endeavours. This, on its own, amounts to a number of data streams handling inflow of cardholder profiles requiring automation of access privileges, etc.

“A university campus can also pose a challenge in that it needs to be an open environment, but security, safety and asset protection have to be maintained. Staff, students and contractors should have unhindered access at the times they are required to be there. Integrating the right tools, such as access control, alarms management, CCTV systems, and notifications, is paramount.”

According to Afzali, the system at the heart of a university security solution is access control.

“CCTV is an important platform, but it’s a monitoring tool, not a preventative security measure in the way that access control is,” he explains. “An educational security solution needs to be a seamless integrated system which provides situational awareness, maintains health and safety, has the ability to respond quickly in emergency situations, and to protect assets.”

The new electronic security technologies most appealing to universities include analytics, biometrics, holistic integrations, situational awareness, icon-powered mapping and more and Afzali argues these are equally important concepts.

“Situational awareness and the capability to communicate organisation-wide is extremely important,” he says. “Universities typically have many thousands of people and being able to efficiently notify specific people of an event without creating a panic or incurring unnecessary costs is essential.

“An interface such as Events REST API are key enablers for situational awareness and analytics.

Such tools can operate in parallel with no performance cost to the production environment

Sam Afzali

CCTV IS AN IMPORTANT PLATFORM, BUT IT’S A MONITORING TOOL, NOT A PREVENTATIVE SECURITY MEASURE IN THE WAY THAT ACCESS CONTROL IS.

while executing rules-based analytics.

“Keeping security patrols up to date using capable electronic security empowers them - skilled security officers can utilise electronics easily and efficiently making the security system more effective.”

Given the importance of networks to modern university and school security solutions, Afzali argues it’s incredibly important to secure against both physical and cyber intrusions.

“Access control systems, and their health and resilience with respect to cyber threats, is every bit as important as other systems deployed at any facility,” he says. “These are rapidly shifting from the isolated systems they used to be so that they can be connected and provide greater value in today’s terms. Protecting access control solutions in networked environments is an ongoing effort requiring continuous work.

“Universities have plenty of amateur hackers having a go trying to expose systems unlike other environments. There has been a positive shift in IT departments getting involved with system maintenance and control.”

Genetec’s George Moawad says the job of defending educational institutions is not any easy one.

“Security teams need to secure both buildings and grounds, keep intruders out, while also maintaining an environment where people can freely move around campus,” he says. “Keeping thousands of students, faculty, staff, and visitors safe while considering privacy laws, labour agreements, and cybersecurity threats only adds to the complexity.

“Regardless of campus size or building locations, the challenges faced by educational institutions are often the same. There’s a need to survey a wide area of both interior and exterior spaces without violating labour agreements or privacy rights. There’s also a need to maintain spaces that are conducive to learning and allow students, faculty, staff, and visitors to easily navigate the campus, while also making a site impenetrable to intruders. Throw in budget cutbacks that many institutions face, and today’s security solutions must deliver more while being cost-effective.

According to Moawad, the most important aspect of a security solution for an educational facility may not be what first springs to mind.

“Sectors like retail, airports, and stadiums have spent years developing physical security strategies, but many educational facilities have been challenged by budget restrictions,” he says. “They’ve had to take a tactical and frequently reactionary approach, are limited in choice of solution and often must compromise on features. In this new security climate, schools must start thinking about security as part of a larger picture that includes daily operations and ease-of-movement in addition to safety. This approach can help improve the learning environment as a whole.

“A unified IP security platform is especially

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important for schools and universities looking to solve the complexity of their security needs.

From a single solution, operators can view video, manage door security, and enforce parking across various locations on campus. It can extend system capabilities to others, such as facilities managers who can ensure everyone on campus has the credentials they need to move freely from building to building. Even with limited resources, a unified platform can keep the security and facilities management team efficient.”

Moawad argues that placing access control or CCTV at the heart of the latest solutions is too restrictive.

“School administrators have to be careful not to limit their focus to video management or access control,” he says. “They also need to think about managing threat-levels and automating responses. Campus security should include unified video surveillance, access control, license plate recognition, analytics, and more.

“Video surveillance provides a live and recorded visual representation of what’s happening across a campus and can readily be called upon to provide important information in the investigation process.

“Electronic access control on doors and barriers not only regulates who goes where, but also provides protection for property and assets. The capability to immediately lockdown an entire campus is also an absolute necessity in this day and age.

“Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR)

Gallagher and Milestone at MQU.

can help locate individuals that have been banned from campus even before they park their car. These components – along with analytics, communications, and intrusion detection – can work together to provide campuses the most secure learning environment possible.”

When it comes to the latest technologies that appeal to educational institutions, Moawad says cost efficiency again comes to the fore.

“Because administration and security are tasked with protecting students, staff, and visitors – usually on a strict budget – it’s imperative that campuses invest in a security system that will provide the most technologically-advanced solution both today and tomorrow,” he says. “However, given budget restrictions looking at long term maintenance and viability of solutions is also imperative.

“Advances in technology now offer the possibility of a unified security solution that provides a ‘one pane of glass’ view into complete security environment (including video, access control and licence plate recognition). This type of solution means you can scale based on availability of budget over time without a heavy investment in integration.

Unification also means a comprehensive cybersecurity approach across your whole system as well as simplifying upgrading, training, support and maintenance from one vendor.

“Implementation of a unified campus security solution can deliver a variety of additional benefits including increased situational awareness, real-

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● Special report

Education

FOR SOME SCHOOLS, IT IS NOT VIOLENCE BUT VANDALISM, THEFT, AND MISCHIEF THAT ARE THE PERSISTENT CHALLENGES. time collaboration with the authorities, improved campus flow, more efficient parking management, and security that protects the assortment of areas and assets that can be found in an education setting.

“A physical security system that unifies IP video surveillance, access control, and automatic license plate recognition within one intuitive solution, that also offers pre-integrated plug-ins and certified support for other security solutions and information sources such as communications, intrusion detection, and analytics, can help security personnel keep the entire institution secure.”

According to Moawad, school officials and administrators must start by assessing the requirements of their specific facilities before they start thinking about the functionalities they need.

“For some schools, it is not violence but vandalism, theft, and mischief that are the persistent challenges,” he says. “And the right physical security system can help reduce or eliminate many of these problems as well. Administrators will also have to recognise that, in addition to helping students, faculty, and staff feel safe, physical security systems can play an important role in a school’s daily operations. They can help keep track of where students are throughout the day, prevent unauthorised individuals from accessing sensitive areas, including labs, and help manage the flow of vehicular traffic around facilities.

“And when it comes to the all-important question of student privacy, particularly in video

surveillance, school administrators are going to have to find solutions that have privacy features built in. Privacy must be top of mind both when it comes to monitoring students within facilities or sharing video footage with local law enforcement. In order to facilitate collaboration with police services when necessary and protect privacy in general, a school needs to implement a solution that can easily anonymise the identity of any or all individuals both in real-time and in archived footage.

“And a school or university’s security platform should allow it to foster city-wide connections by securely sharing video or system access with local police departments when appropriate. With more data, they’ll be able to quickly assist the school, no matter the situation. In emergency situations, an internal school lockdown workflow could automatically reposition camera views and lock doors in at-risk areas of the school while also alerting the police or automatically giving them access to live streams of video in the school.”

Finding a balance between safety and security and community access can be managed using the right solution, according to Moawad.

“Access control has evolved beyond more than just a locked door,” he says. “A modern access control solution can ensure the right people have access to the right areas; customers, employees, and property are protected; and offer an open and inviting – yet resilient and secure – environment. Ultimately, a good access control solution will go unnoticed.

End users can come and go to their destination uninterrupted or with minimal delay which leads to happier employees, customers, and visitors.”

There’s a lot of talk about situational awareness in the market but actually achieving this is harder than it looks, according to Moawad.

“Understanding all the factors of an emerging incident or event can help security personnel resolve situations quickly,” he says. “However, as educational institutions increase in size and complexity, maintaining an all-encompassing view can be a challenge. They require a physical security system that provides security personnel with the information necessary to respond quickly and effectively to any situation.

“Educational institutions can include multiple teaching facilities, research labs, dormitories, libraries, sports complexes, and parking lots. These can be collected in a single area or spread over multiple sites. A physical security system that unifies IP video surveillance, access control, and automatic license plate recognition within one intuitive solution, that also allows for the integration of other security solutions and information sources such as communications, intrusion detection, and analytics, can help security personnel keep the entire institution secure.

“I think a unified physical security platform is especially important for schools and universities

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looking to solve the complexity of their security needs in both a cost effective and efficient manner.

From a single solution, operators can view video, manage door security, and enforce parking across various locations on campus. It can extend system capabilities to others such as facility managers who can ensure everyone on campus has the credentials they need to move freely from building to building.

Even with limited resources, a unified platform can keep the security and facilities management team efficient.”

Moawad believes cyber security is a central part of any networked security solution and he argues it will only become more important as educational institutions continue to pursue efficiencies.

“As we look to the future, there is little doubt organisations will increase their connections with one another, extend their security systems, and continue to move to the cloud,” he says. “Without the proper protection, cyber criminals can gain access to vulnerable devices, including video surveillance cameras and door controllers, and attack all manner of sensitive data and systems. Whether we calculate the damage in terms of financial loss or violation or denial of service, the results can be devastating.

“The security of security systems (access control, video, intrusion and others) is a major concern for organisations of every size. Tools like encryption, authentication and authorisation play key roles in keeping data safe, ensuring those accessing systems are authorised to do so, and defining user access rights, thereby helping to ensure individual privacy.

“We see that the use of IP-based access control solutions to manage employee and visitor comings

and goings has dramatically increased worldwide.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has added connectivity to an abundance of devices that better facilitate access which has users – and potential users – rightfully concerned about the security of these newer technologies.”

Moawad argues that if end users choose the right technology and undertake the proper precautions, IoT devices and credentials – including those used in access control systems – are very secure.

“Access control has adopted the use of mobile phones, smartcards, and electronic locks – each of which may have been vulnerable in the past,” he says. “Today, however, these devices actually harbor some of the most secure technology in existence. By incorporating a unified physical security solution which includes access control that embraces the utmost importance of cybersecurity, you are protecting your security solution, which in turn, protects your business.

“Something else for security and facilities managers to consider is that while reaching out to physical security experts may seem daunting, finding a good consultant is an important step in shifting the way school and university administrations view security.

“Ultimately, school officials need to understand physical security the way that businesses and governments do. They must assess their specific requirements, recognise how a security solution can improve daily operations, and then design a strategy that safeguards the learning environment by improving the safety and security of faculty, staff, and students.” n

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● Regulars

Products

Editor’s choice

What’s new in the industry.

VIVOTEK MS9321-EHV FROM SENSATEK

HANWHA NEW-Q FROM CSD

l VIVTOEK’S 20MP MS9321-EHV features 30fps a 180-degree

l HANWHA has introduced the NEW-Q Series of cameras and NVRs to the market, which is made up of a range of 5MP indoor and outdoor dome, flateye and bullet cameras along with PoE plug-and-play NVRs in 4, 8 or 16 channels. With the ability to record up to 8MP resolution and display up to 4K image via HDMI output, the range provides a ultra-high performance recording solution for high security and mission critical sites.

The Q series NVRs enables users to maximise on the available bandwidth by configuring up to 3 separate network streams.

The NEW-Q series is an affordable product line, packed with innovative features, while delivering sharp and clear image quality. Incorporating the advanced compression technology of WiseStream II, these cameras can reduce bandwidth by up to 50 per cent and when combined with H.265, the bandwidth efficiency can be improved by up to 75 per cent compared to the current H.264 technology.

There’s also a super-compact camera called Q Mini, specifically designed for retail applications.

view, 30 metre IR range, WDR Pro, SNV, as well as IP66 and IK10 rating against dust, water and vandalism. The camera features four 5MP CMOS sensors that are stitched into a 20MP 180-degree view.

The MS9321-EHV has Vivotek’s video alignment feature, which allows installers to adjust the positioning and image quality of each sensor to give users a seamless picture with no duplication.

Combining H.265 and Smart Stream III, the MS9321-EHV can also reduce bandwidth and storage consumption more than 90 per cent compared to traditional H.264 compression without smart streaming.

Distributor: SensaTek Contact: 1300 560 026

Distributor: Central Security Distribution Contact: 1300 319 499

PELCO RELEASES SARIX TI THERMAL INFRARED CAMERA l PELCO’S new Sarix TI fixed camera is an intelligent, thermal/

visual single-head camera with situational awareness capabilities and more. The Sarix TI uses an uncooled ASi Microbolometer and advanced video processing to deliver high quality video.

With options for VGA or QVGA+ thermal imagers and 14mm, 35mm, or 50mm lenses, the Sarix TI can handle a wide range of applications.

With the addition of a high-definition visual light camera, this dual channel video delivers optimized day and night channels simultaneously in one compact, feature-rich camera. This provides you with 2 ways to monitor the scene for full situational awareness.

According to Pelco’s Craig Cobbin, Sarix TI has unmatched image processing algorithms to provide enhanced contrast for analytics for better detection, classification, and recognition and features built-in motion detection analytics automate critical tasks.

“This camera is ideal for government, commercial businesses, and enterprises where 24/7 perimeter and large-area situational awareness and threat detection is missioncritical,” Cobbin said.

EAGLE EYE ADDS SUPPORT FOR 15+ BODYWORN CAMERAS TO CLOUD VMS l Eagle Eye Network’s mobile and body-worn camera system includes the ability to view mobile and fixed camera footage in one interface, securely share videos and more. Eagle Eye says while managing and retrieving body-worn camera video has been a separate process from the primary video surveillance system, with Eagle Eye, this can now be an integrated and cohesive process that requires less training, is more secure and more reliable.

The Eagle Eye mobile and body-worn camera system includes: • Viewing mobile and fixed camera footage in one interface, eliminating the need for multiple applications.

• Archiving, storage and retrieval of time-stamped mobile footage with GPS coordinates and tracking.

• Secure sharing of video via mp4 files or via direct links to interested parties.

• Open platform that provides compatibility with a broad array of cameras. Eagle Eye Networks provides support for over 3500 mobile and fixed cameras.

Distributor: Eagle Eye Networks Contact: +61-424-199-838

Distributor: Pelco Australia Contact: +61 2 9125 9310

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TIANDY RELEASES 16X 4-INCH PTZ l WITH starlight technology, Tiandy’s compact new 4-inch

(10cm) PTZ provides colour images at resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 at 30fps with a minimum scene illumination of 0.002Lux. This neat little camera has plenty of power, including a 25x optical zoom, a 16x digital zoom and a 150m IR array to capture sharper and more detailed images at longer ranges. The camera can handle low temperature environments thanks to an improved built-in heater and there are no plugins, simplifying the steps to view image streams via a web browser.

Distributor: NAS Brisbane Contact: +61 7 3015 8700 Distributor: Leeway Melbourne Contact: +61 4 3389 6247

GENETEC INTEGRATES BOSCH, MOBOTIX, EUKLIS CAMERAS WITH CLOUD-BASED VMS l GENETEC says its Stratocast cloud-based video surveillance-asa-service (VSaaS) now supports new camera models from Bosch, Mobotix and Euklis.

“A driving force behind Stratocast is to deliver a cloud-based video management system based on an open architecture with no need for a local bridge or recorders,” says Oktay Yildiz, product line manager – Stratocast, Genetec.

“We want to offer users a non-proprietary solution in the cloud so that they have the flexibility to integrate a variety of cameras to address their specific needs. With Stratocast, users can transition to a cloud-based infrastructure while potentially leveraging their existing investment in camera hardware or choosing to install new cameras from a variety of supported brands.”

Stratocast is designed to meet the needs of organizations that require a reliable and cost-effective video surveillance solution without the expenses and complexities typically associated with installing and managing onpremises surveillance systems, according to Genetec.

Distributor: Hills Contact: 1800 685 487

HANWHA UNVEILS NEW AI CAMERAS l HANWHA Techwin has unveiled a new line of AI cameras at

GSX 2019 in Chicago that recognize humans versus vehicles, faces, license plates and more. The PNO-A9081 series features 4K resolution while the PNO-A8081 series features 5MP resolution.

Both camera models include 2.2x zoom with motorized varifocal lenses (4.5~10mm, F1.6).

The new AI algorithms can discern human beings as distinct objects separate from their surroundings because they have been trained with thousands of images of humans, according to the company. With this additional data, the cameras can support advanced rules about the movement of cars and the movements of people within the same image.

The new AI cameras are also said to be able to recognize types of vehicles such as a bus or car and the colour of a vehicle.The cameras utilize Hanwha’s modular design, for quick and efficient installation and future maintenance.

Distributor: EOS Australia Pty Ltd Contact: +61 2 9749 5888

MOBILE APP FOR LEGACY DSC POWERSERIES PANELS l BGW Technologies has launched the Envisalink 4 (EYZEVL4CG) in Australia – it’s a powerful TCP-IP based keybus level interface to DSC PowerSeries panels (supported panels: PC1555, PC1555MX, PC5010(832), PC5020(864), PC1616, PC1832 and PC1864).

EnvisaLink 4 allows you to view the status of and even control your DSC PowerSeries alarm panel through a standard webbrowser or smart-phone mobile apps. The module is small form-factor (10.5cm by 4.2 cm), can be fitted inside of the DSC PowerSeries enclosure and comes with mounting stand-offs.

Some other features are: * Simple to hook-up to the DSC PowerSeries Keybus and 65mA power draw * 100BaseT Ethernet support * Built-in basic web server and HTML User-Interface * 128-bit encryption * Real-time zone status with time-since-tripped feature * Local Arm/Disarm/Zone Bypass/PGM Control * Multi-Partition Support.

Distributor: BGW Technologies Contact: +61 2 9674 4255

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● Regulars

Help desk

Our panel of experts answers your questions.

towards the sensor or away from it. A good dual technology sensor will also have performance enhancing features like mirror optic lenses, advanced signal processing, tamper and active IRE tamper protection.

Q: Is it worth using somewhat less sensitive dual technology to increase resistance to false alarms?

A: It doesn’t necessarily follow that a dual technology sensor is less sensitive to a genuine intrusion than a PIR – the reduction in sensitivity is to false alarm activation sources.

Dual technology sensors combine a pair of technologies that are sensitive to 2 different types of disturbance – microwave and passive infrared. In a genuine intrusion, both technologies will be activated more or less simultaneously.

PIR elements sense the level of IRE changing between zones over a set time at a set speed. There aren’t many environmental disturbances that mirror this sort of mammal movement – but heat sources, especially warm air currents, can spell trouble for PIRs. Microwaves work differently. They cover an area with a signal and then pick up variations between the signal sent and the signal reflected back. It’s called the Doppler shift. Microwave sensor technologies offer strong detection performance.

Something that makes dual technology sensors more robust is that while PIRs are sensitive to movement across their zones, microwave devices activate if they pick up a Doppler shift moving

Q: How important is digit count when considering a digital multimeter?

What about half digits? Do I need a 3-and-a-half or a 4-and-a-half-digit display?

A: The specifications important with a DMM are resolution and full-scale voltage – and you want to be sure a DMM has resolution for the measurements you make. Installers who are looking for a new digital multimeter may run across the term ‘half-digit’ in specifications literature. This half-digit is actually a display digit that’s only able to be 0 or 1 – it can’t adopt the full 0-9 digit range.

Half-digits are always the left-hand digit, so at full stretch a complete 3-and-ahalf-digit display is going to be 0-1999.

Most important to bear in mind is that half-digits serve the purpose of allowing low readings on measurements that nearly overload one range, making it

necessary to step up a range. If you had a 3-digit display for example, it would be impossible to measure 1.042 volts on the 0.999 range – you’d wind up with an overload. Why not just switch to the 9.99 read range? Because you’ll wind up with less resolution – the instrument will read 1.04 volts. Given most digital multimeters have accuracies that are no better than plus or minus a digit, it’s possible that this reading will be 1.03 volts or even 1.05 volts.

When you’re choosing a DMM, a 3-anda-half-digit unit will be more than adequate if you can save some money over purchasing a 4-digit instrument.

Certainly, a 4-and-half-digit DMM will give you accuracy of 0.05 per cent but for most security installers the 0.5-1 per cent accuracy variation offered by a three-and-a-half-digit display are more than enough.

Q: Could you explain why LED light sources are so much more economical to run than incandescent lights? I’m also interested in whether it’s best to use silicon or gallium arsenidetype LED lights for infrared lighting.

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Which is more economical and which delivers more red light? Thanks for any help with our question.

A: LEDs are PN junction diodes – pure and simple. The reason they’re so efficient is they convert an electrical current directly into light. There are both silicon and gallium arsenide LEDs, with silicon types putting out a small amount of near infrared and the gallium arsenide units producing large amounts of red and near infra red. The voltage threshold to produce a forward bias across a PN diode is only 1.3V and this little stream of electricity excites electrons as they leap across the PN junction causing them to emit photons.

A typical LED lamp incorporates a large number of diodes but they’re still more efficient than incandescent lamps which lose more than half the power that drives them through heat. Remember, an incandescent bulb is simply a resistive element and as we all know, when current slows down (as it does when it’s squeezing through a tungsten filament) things warm up.

Could I get a basic feel for the structure of lightning rods that could protect externally fitted cameras in metal housings?

A: Lightning rods comprise a pointed metal rod at least 2m long that’s attached to a roof (or surveillance camera’s pole). From the rod, a fat length of copper or alloy wire runs down to a conductive metal matrix buried in the ground. Lightning rods simply provide lightning with a low resistance path to ground. Lightning also has the ability to leap around when it strikes thanks to variations in the electrical potential of what’s struck and the potential of the earth. What happens is that the light is leaping around looking for an easier path to ground. When it does this it’s likely to cause additional damage to hardware in the vicinity. As a result, installers providing lightning protection for poled installations need to ensure the lightning rod is a good length.

Q: Is there still a case for using LCD keypads with alarm systems?

LED keypads last longest.

A: Sure – if you can find one that works with the systems you are installing. Touch screens are reliable, but they aren’t as reliable as LCD keypads, which can last more than 20 years. It you want next level reliability, there are stories of LED keypads still being used after 40 years.

You need to factor in replacement when you install touch – that means making sure you get onto clients before the keypad gives up the ghost. Something else you want to ensure if you do use an LCD keypad is that the system retains all the home automation functions – that means using an app on a mobile phone the user will replace every 2-4 years. The user might also have to deal with a bit more latency. There are some potential positives to the integrated hub/controller/ touch keypad format and that’s product churn based on higher levels of R&D. We tend to think that most users will want touch, given relatively low and falling costs.

Furthermore, fish tape dispensers are often poorly designed by those who have no comprehension of friction or elasticity. With any other tool you might find a way around a poor dispenser but with fish tape there’s potential for eye injury, as well as complete humiliation.

Fish tape needs to be strong to handle difficult jobs – slim lightweight fibreglass tape is prone to breaking - that means you need a decent metal tape of at least 3mm. However, there’s a great deal of elastic potential energy stored in 3-5mm fish tape when coiled. That means a welldesigned dispenser with a brake and a simple and reliable re-coiling mechanism is vital. Trying to manually control a long fish tape after it has burst out of its dispenser is Laurel and Hardy stuff. n

Q: Enjoyed reading your recent piece on using fish tape – getting it right is a bit of a dark art and some of our techs have never managed to do it right!

One thing we do wonder is whether the high cost of fish tape is justified – it’s astronomical. Do you think lower cost fish tape is just as good as the $A500 stuff?

A: There’s a reason pro gear is more expensive. We think cheap fish tape is often rubbish – the tape can be weak and prone to breaking mid-run, on tight corners or in narrow channels.

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Security Managers ◆ Integrators ◆ IT Managers ◆ Installers OCTOBER 2019 ISSUE 414

l Business As Usual For Interlogix ANZ l Security Integrators Confused By Chinese Camera Ban

MEGAPIXEL LENS CONSIDERATIONS

l Case Study: Next Level Data Centre l Product Review: Saab OneView Management System l Hikvision Sharpens Focus On Small Medium Business l Special Report: Challenges of Airport Security

events

l Alarm Monitoring: Making The Grade l Case Study: Dahua Protects Recife Subway l Special Report: Securing Schools & Universities

SECURITY & GOVERNMENT EXPO PP 100001158

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Security and Government Expo 2019

Date: November 14, 2019 Venue: The Realm Hotel, Canberra Contact: Monique +61 2 9280 4425 SAGE 2019 is the perfect opportunity for government and commercial end users, as well as integrators, installers and consultants, to see the latest security products and technologies in the nation's capital city in a relaxed and informal environment.

SecTech Roadshow 2020

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Dates: May 2020 Venues: 5 city Australian tour Contact: Monique Keatinge +61 2 9280 4425 SecTech Roadshow in its 6th year takes leading electronic security manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers on a national tour.

Security Essen Date: September 22-25, 2020 Venue: Messe Essen, Messeplatz 1, Essen, Germany Contact: +49 (0)201 72 44-524 Security Essen 2018 draws 950 exhibitors from 43 countries to show their security and safety innovations to 36,000 visitors from 125 nations at Messe Essen, Germany.

Security 2019 Exhibition & Conference

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Date: July 22-24, 2020 Venue: Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre Contact: +61 3 9261 4662 Security Exhibition & Conference is the industry's annual opportunity to reunite for 3 days of quality networking and education.

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