g m e t r o p o l i t a n l a n d s c a p e
Federation – leasing services to public and private entities
In the United Kingdom, city councils are typically responsible for implementing, managing and funding their own city- wide surveillance efforts. Control room managers are therefore often tasked with generating revenues for expansions or upgrades. In many respects, these control rooms become their own self-funded business units, where council control room managers reach out to public or private entities such as schools, libraries, and hospitals to offer centralised monitoring services.
These services are facilitated by a concept known as Federation, which allows organisations to monitor remote independent sites as if they were part of a single virtual system. Federation provides cities with a global view of all facilities from a centralised monitoring, reporting and alarm management location, whilst still preserving local or remote autonomy at each site. Extending these services to the community helps cities generate a significant revenue source that will fund expansion as the city grows, and simultaneously helps link major facilities across a council under one city-wide view.
For the facilities themselves, buying into city-controlled monitoring services lowers operational costs by removing the need for security personnel at each location or during off-peak hours. Investing in this type of initiative also enables an organisation to endorse and financially support local council efforts in keeping the community safe.
Implementing off-shelf unification platforms versus customised PSIMs
Many cities are increasingly realising the benefits of one user interface to monitor their entire security ecosystem and achieving greater cooperation between many pivotal systems. For this, two options exist: Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) systems or off-the-shelf unified security platforms.
As opposed to a unified platform, a PSIM does not generally have a built-in access control, intrusion, or video surveillance solution. Instead, it integrates different systems through proprietary software development kits (SDK) and application programming interfaces (API).
© CI TY S ECURI TY MAGAZ INE – SUMMER 2014
This merged seven other major systems into one platform. These systems included: intrusion detection, fire alarm, building management, emergency lighting, flood and leak detection, lift alarms and SIP- enabled IP intercoms.
In a similar way, the city of Forbach in France recently underwent a major city-wide surveillance upgrade. The city also installed a unified platform which accommodated their video surveillance growth and
supported greater network efficiency, while also providing Synergis, the access control component, to secure the door at their command centre, called CSU (Centre de Surveillance
Urbaine). Leveraging the open-architecture
of the platform, the city chose a mix of high-definition and multi-lens cameras from
Although PSIMs may potentially encompass a wide range of solutions, and are still very beneficial to some critical military or government applications, the development efforts and costs can be dissuasive to councils. Compatibility challenges could also arise when one of the sub-systems requires an upgrade or maintenance, driving up complications and costs in the long run.
On the other hand, an off-the-self unified security platform provides deep-level system unification within a single solution from a single vendor. Features developed for mass applications can be selectively implemented to achieve a certain level of customisation without going over budget.
Open software development kits (SDK) add another level of personalisation to councils requiring specific applications or functionalities. Furthermore, because all core systems are designed to innately work together, upgrades, configurations and maintenance are seamless.
A unified and open architecture helps two European cities cost-effectively expand city surveillance
In a recent building remodel of two major city council buildings, Manchester City Council (MCC) implemented a unified platform.
different vendors. The city of Forbach also made a move away from fibre optics cabling to a more centralised architecture, using the Schlossberg Tower, a historic monument located at the centre of the city, as a wireless bridge to transmit all video to a central server in the town hall.
Continued urban growth will bring cities together
As metropolitan boundaries continue to expand with population influx, more neighbouring cities will look to one another to share resources and work in tandem to safeguard communities and address emergencies. Implementing these cost-saving expansion strategies today will help streamline the multi-city collaboration of tomorrow. Opting for an open architecture city-wide platform that is able to unify multiple security systems and to centralise monitoring of many independent sites is the key to maintaining public safety and security through inevitable urbanisation.
Simon Barnes Genetec Inc.
www.genetec.com
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