The University of East Anglia (UEA) is an internationally renowned, campus-style seat of learning set in 320 acres of parkland just two miles west of Norwich city centre. Providing academic, social and cultural facilities to over 14,000 students (2,500 of whom are non-UK students emanating from more than 100 countries worldwide), the university employs something in the region of 3,000 staff and was founded back in 1963.
Today, the UEA sits proudly in the UK Top 20 list published by The Sunday Times – but it’s not just the academic side that wins the plaudits. The campus sports park houses an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and regularly hosts international sporting events. On top of that, the UEA also harbours the world famous Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
Architect Denys Lasdun – designer of the National Theatre – was appointed founding architect in 1962. Lasdun was asked to produce “an integrated physical design which would reflect and complement the academic structure”. He designed the campus such that no building would be more than five minutes’ walk away from any other. Core buildings include the monumental Teaching Wall, raised walkways, Central Square and, perhaps most famously, the striking ‘ziggurat’ towers of Norfolk and Suffolk Terrace.
Security: the early years
The UEA has seen rapid expansion with extensive rebuilding work during the 1980s and over the last ten years, but the original core of Lasdun’s campus remains. Management of the 320-acre estate and over 100 campus buildings is the responsibility of the university’s 100 staff-strong Estates Department. Its core functions are maintaining the physical fabric of the campus, managing the grounds… and security.
Originally, campus security was the responsibility of the university’s 60 porters who were the site’s ‘eyes and ears’. It was they who ensured doors were locked and windows closed. Porter numbers were reduced in the 1980s, but many were retained as security officers. During the late 1980s, the university began to install CCTV cameras, mainly as a response to an increase in car crime on campus. Screens displaying live CCTV images were installed in the main reception area for monitoring by the front desk team, and to act as a deterrent to would-be trouble makers.
New CCTV cameras were added as a crime prevention measure, but this engendered a scattergun approach to camera installation. As small groups of cameras were added, a new dedicated monitoring screen was also purchased and installed in a number of different monitoring locations within the campus rather than in a central Control Room. There was no clear policy on the type of cameras being bought. Different CCTV systems were installed in each new building campus-wide. Each remained stand-alone, often using differing proprietary standards for communication.
As a result, interoperability between groups of cameras was a near impossibility. Monitoring jobs such as tracking people moving across the campus became time-consuming and complex and was riddled with ‘failure points’.
A change in direction
During the mid-1990s, a central Control Room was established and all of the individual systems connected to it. Monitoring of the screens was now the responsibility of the security officers. The Control Room was packed full of equipment, including multiplexers, a bank of video recorders and two walls of monitors totalling 30 screens. Each screen showed the output from four CCTV cameras.
The Control Room required extensive air conditioning to reduce the heat generated by all of this equipment. Post-installation, on a hot summer’s day temperatures in the Control Room could still exceed 40 degrees Celsius. When the heat became too much, not only did the security staff not want to work, but the equipment would start to fail.
In 2003, the UEA appointed Mike McCormack as campus services manager with overall responsibility for security. Looking at the existing CCTV infrastructure, McCormack quickly recognised the system wasn’t delivering to the standards expected of a modern 21st Century surveillance set-up. If an incident did occur on campus and the police requested images, the Security Team would have to spend hours examining video footage to try and locate the required images and piece them together from different VHS tapes.
There was a mixture of mono and colour cameras. On several occasions, the Security Team couldn’t supply the police with the images they requested. Managing the bank of video recorders was problematic – the tapes had to be changed every 12 hours and, typically, wouldn’t be changed at the right time so vital images would be erased and those that remained were difficult to locate.
McCormack initiated a complete review of security management within his first month. This review encompassed the CCTV system and articulated the need for a long-term security strategy. For too long, the UEA had been battling with a myriad of proprietary camera systems and, if a camera experienced problems, the university had to go back to the original manufacturer to see if they still supplied parts (or whether the camera had become obsolete).
McCormack discovered that the building contractors had been in charge of specifying the type of camera systems being installed in new UEA buildings. Those systems had been an after-thought once the building was completed, and so cheap and ineffective systems had been deployed.
At the same time the university was starting to identify how it could integrate a range of IT systems together across a new campus-wide, high specification fibre optic network. As part of this planning work, a buildings access control system was integrated with vehicular access control at road entrances to the site. McCormack saw an opportunity to centralise and consolidate the surveillance system through the use of the central fibre IP, opening the system up to wider integration with access control.
Defined surveillance strategy
Trevor Smith – the customer account manager at UEA – has responsibility for helping colleagues to find and establish working partnerships with suppliers, and was assigned the task of managing surveillance improvements for the university. McCormack and Smith started to investigate suppliers with whom they could work to elicit advice and define a CCTV strategy.
Smith takes up the story. “We already had 90 analogue CCTV cameras, and couldn’t afford to scrap all of them. We thought we might have to run the old analogue system separately from the new IP surveillance set-up. I approached one of our existing security suppliers, and the recommendation was to maintain an analogue CCTV system.”
Smith consulted the UEA’s in-house IT Department for its views on analogue and IP surveillance. The latter was recommended, particularly as the university had an excellent IT infrastructure in place which could easily support the transmission and storage of video images from network cameras. The IT Department agreed to take over any hardware maintenance and firmware upgrading of new network cameras, freeing-up some additional funds for the Estates Department which had set aside a maintenance budget to support the security system.
Thoughts then turned to finding an installer who could lead this complex integration project. The university wanted to use a local supplier with a clear focus on offering high quality customer service. Based in West Somerton, Check Your Security (CYS) was founded by managing director Carl Pace (formerly of Microsoft) in 2005, and boasts a strong track record in integrating existing CCTV systems with future-proofed IP surveillance.
CYS is an Axis partner and also works closely with distributor ADI-Gardiner who, in 2004, opened a new division dedicated to selling IP products as well as launching a new partner network programme called Network Video Integration Partner (NVIP).
The aim of the NVIP programme was to find, train and support specialist installers to offer the largest range of IP and digital technology covering CCTV, access control, environmental and building management systems. The programme is designed to reassure end users that their partner company is technically proficient, trained to manufacturers’ standards and also understands networks. CYS joined the programme in 2005, becoming ADI-Gardiner’s NVIP Partner of the Year in 2007.
Enterprise-wide audit report
When Smith met CYS for the first time, Pace recommended carrying out an enterprise-wide audit report of the UEA’s existing surveillance system to determine what was working, what required re-configuring or maintenance work and what was in too poor a state to keep.
Pace’s initial assessment suggested the Security Team was handicapped by the equipment currently in place, and could be rendered far more effective with the installation of a digital surveillance system. Pace was also very concerned about the Control Room, which clearly wasn’t fit for purpose.
Pace recommended conducting a trial of network cameras at one of the campus’ car parks, attaching cameras to a car park barrier area with the addition of an intercom. Using a PC connected in a security officer’s lodge, the UEA Security Team could see the quality of the images produced. This trial addressed all of the image quality issues as it was producing better pictures than their existing analogue cameras. Images could then be fed through Milestone XProtect Enterprise video management software which made it simple to view, handle and record images, allowing images of drivers and cars to be easily matched.
The UEA decided to upgrade its existing analogue CCTV system to IP surveillance – installing new network cameras to provide surveillance to outdoor areas on the campus – and completely revamp the Control Room. McCormack, Smith and the senior management team at the university made a strategic decision to choose an open IP-based platform that would take advantage of UEA’s extensive fibre network infrastructure, and be future-proofed for upgrading and integration with other systems.
Outdoor camera coverage was an area in need of improvement. Key areas requiring camera coverage were The Street (with its banks and shops) and The Square, which is the campus’ central outdoor meeting place. Cameras were to be used for reassuring students when walking from their Halls of Residence to the campus which, in some areas, meant providing coverage in open parkland.
Scaling storage requirements
Pace specified 30 232D and 233D network domes (the latter offering 35x optical zoom) from Axis Communications. CYS also installed 23 243Q and 243SA four and single-channel video encoders to digitise video signals from the UEA’s 90 existing analogue cameras. The 243Q can deliver simultaneous motion JPEG and MPEG-4 video streams plus video motion detection. The encoders can also be used to control PTZs and domes on a range of analogue cameras.
The Control Room has been completely transformed. The bank of video recorders and multiplexers are replaced by a small rack of encoders, three workstations (two of them with three 24″ monitors) and a manageable number of wall-mounted LCD screens. CYS has also installed Milestone’s Enterprise video management system.
In terms of storage, the university currently uses three HP servers (each configured with 16 Tb capacity). As these servers have flexible direct attached storage, scaling storage requirements to whatever size the UEA requires now and in the future is relatively simple. These servers have flexible attached storage for an overall capacity of 80 Tb each. There’s no limit to the amount of servers that can be used, affording the university a truly scalable solution.
Commenting on the new security set-up, Mike McCormack explains: “Using IP surveillance has really increased the effectiveness of my 28-strong security officer team. As any proficient security manager knows, video footage is ideal for ascertaining the movement and actions of an individual, but a good still picture is crucial for identification. This is what our IP surveillance system delivers. The clarity of the images is excellent. My officers can quickly pinpoint the images we need to send to our teams, or to the police service via e-mail or on a DVD disk.”
Instead of officers sitting and viewing screens all day, looking for suspicious behaviour, the new system does this for them. Using motion detection and other triggers, the officers can focus on checking event exceptions. “If we want to investigate more then we simply look back at the recorded footage,” adds McCormack. “This means that more members of my security staff can be out on patrol and targeting the areas where these incidents occur.”
Further expansion on the cards
The UEA is now looking to replace its existing analogue cameras with new network cameras. Carl Pace comments: “The system is now scalable from a hardware, software and storage perspective. In essence it’s limitless, and capable of growing to thousands of cameras across multiple sites using multiple servers. The systems can also be integrated with the campus’ access control and ANPR systems if and when necessary.”
For CYS, this eight-month project with the UEA now forms Phase One of a longer term partnership as the university continues to expand its systems. Further building projects include the construction of a new Halls of Residence for 700 students and teaching facilities to support ‘INTO’ (the UEA’s programme for overseas college students), as well as new academic buildings, extensions to the university’s sports park and the construction of a biomass power plant.
One area being investigated is automatic charging for car parking, using network video cameras and either access cards or Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). This is now feasible via Milestone Enterprise XProtect options. Milestone’s ANPR functionality is also being reviewed to help with identifying cars not registered to be on campus and, where appropriate, to pass registration plate details on to the police service.”
Building for the future
“It was extremely important we could build a relationship with a company that was willing to take the time to understand our unique set of requirements,” explains Trevor Smith. “It’s cutting-edge technology, and there’s no doubt this system has allowed our security division to offer an enhanced level of service to students and staff alike.”
It’s only right that the last word should be reserved for Mike McCormack. “Carl and his team understood our vision and had the ability to translate it to the real world. The UEA’s senior management views the new surveillance system as an asset that fits in perfectly with the wider integration plans. It has radically changed the way we work for the better.”
