Issue link: https://securitytechnologyexecutive.epubxp.com/i/859507
28 SECURIT Y TECHNOLOGY E XECUTIVE • July/August 2017 • www. SecurityInfoWatch.com CAMPUS SECURIT Y T ake a visitor tour of any university campus these days and, along with a discussion about dorms and dining halls, your guide will most certainly talk about the school's commitment to security and the systems in place to keep everyone safe. Security is now "front and center" on university campuses like never before, but even so, systems must still be designed with sensitivity to budgets. When planning for a new system or updating an older one, campus technol- ogy executives and their system integrators should be engaged in collaborative discussions about the elements that will comprise their system – both hardware and software. Each should be evaluated in terms of how it will contribute to the system's total cost of owner- ship. Communication and careful planning, up front, is the best way to ensure that there are no surprises later on and that the VMS delivers on expectations for both performance and value. Following are issues worth considering. Network Design When designing a campus VMS system and planning its topology, the first step is to understand who will need to access video feed from all the different buildings. Will there be a central control station for managing the entire campus? Will monitoring of some properties occur locally? Typi- cally, if each building on campus has many cameras, systems should be designed to record and store video locally, but allow for live viewing and playback remotely. This keeps the bandwidth usage across the wide area network to a minimum. Planning for Cost-Effective Planning for Cost-Effective VMS Solutions on University Campuses Administrations can lower TOC of campus-wide surveillance without sacrificing coverage By Bret McGowan