Fifty-five cameras were deployed across a new virtual local area network (VLAN), which was designed specifically to carry surveillance data.
The site’s 35 existing analogue cameras, which had been operating across four standalone CCTV systems, have now been added to the VLAN using 10 Axis 241Q video servers.
“It made good business sense to move our surveillance systems onto the network from the point of view of centralising monitoring, enabling integration with other security systems and generally future-proofing our investment in surveillance,” said William Stevenson, an assistant estates director at the University of Aberdeen.
The system has also been extended, at a total cost of GB pound 100,000, to provide surveillance in vulnerable areas like car parks.
Images from across the site are now transferred through fibre optic cables that link the university’s buildings. These are picked up by a 12Tb RAID 5 SCSI storage device in the campus’s new control room. Capable of holding two weeks of footage, the device is equipped with Version 6.0e of Milestone’s Enterprise network video recording software with Smart Client.
“The University of Aberdeen has made a simple business decision that the best way to get better control over their surveillance output is to bring existing systems together onto the network,” said Steve Gorski, managing director for Axis Communications in the UK.
“Simultaneously they have created greater flexibility to expand, upgrade and improve the system.”