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Intelligent Infrastructure: Security and Surveillance

Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By James Carlini, Certified Infrastructure Consultant

Aiming for quality in technology investments means knowing what you're buying

The need to understand how to maximize the network or electronic layer of infrastructure is imperative to maximizing economic viability of any enterprise as well as providing security and surveillance capabilities to it. This task is difficult, however, when you consider how quickly things change. For instance, there's a new perspective on the use of network infrastructure. Just like single-lane dirt roads evolved into the multi-lane superhighways of today, single-function voice networks have to be updated to a multi-channel, multi-gigabit network that can handle the explosive growth of video and other convergent applications. This leads to an important question: Are you buying the wrong equipment for building or campus surveillance because your on-staff or outside expert only reads spec sheets?

New planning and design concepts are creeping into the traditional approaches to buildings as well as intelligent business campuses that support the next-generation industrial parks. As a result, architects and design engineers of every discipline have to augment their understanding of what needs to be added from a network-centric perspective.

Infrastructure issues have evolved from traditional tenant requirements to new intelligent amenities that are now “must-haves,” instead of “hoped-fors.” In order to understand this new phenomenon, identifying the sub-layers of the framework of critical infrastructure is necessary (Chart). Many applications within these sub-layers must be addressed, but the ones with significant growth today are video and security/surveillance applications — both of which use camera technology.

Aiming for quality

Video surveillance and the use of more cameras for various enterprise functions on IP networks are making many public and private organizations look at cameras as well as supporting storage devices. There is also an industry trend where analog cameras are being replaced by IP cameras, because they can be integrated into Web-based applications instead of dedicated single-function networks. Because new and retrofit projects can get expensive, the most common question always arises: Are we getting our money's worth?

From casinos to museums, the use of cameras to secure areas continues to grow. For example, a typical casino has in excess of 1,300 cameras strategically placed to watch patrons and premises while a museum like the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry has more than 300 cameras. Unfortunately, some experts are using the wrong yardsticks to measure camera competitors, and many are looking for features that are meaningless in comparing quality, longevity, and overall service.

Choosing the right camera

There are six criteria you should focus on when deciding on which camera best fits the needs of a particular project, including: picture quality, low-light operation, motion picture, innovative design, reliability, and impact on network performance.

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