SenSys Technology conducts detailed specifications at the outset of each of our Smart Integration Projects. In this blog post, we share some of the organisational detail of our project at Blackpool Shopping Centre and Retail Campus. Eleven standalone shopping centre management systems were integrated onto one converged smart platform.
Smart Integration Process at Blackpool Shopping Centre and Retail Campus
The integration process involved the following steps:
- Design
- Supply
- Decommissioning and disposal of existing assets
- Installation
- Commissioning
- Testing
- Maintenance and
- Operation of the new Security System
Design
- During the design stage, several key areas had to be taken into consideration to be able SenSys Tech specify the right solution to fit the requirements outlined by the client. These areas included: Existing cabling and network infrastructure, control room functionality and video display wall, integration with existing intruder alarm system, recording an archiving and operational functionality.
- The existing cabling and network infrastructure included fibre connectivity between all four of the sites comms rooms which could be utilized and connected using network switches with fibre SFP ports. This would provid network connectivity throughout the site. The existing coax cabling going to the majority of the 160 analogue cameras would be utilized and encoded to IP using IP video encoders.
- The requirements for the control room functionality and video display wall included wall mounting of two 50-inch monitors and desk mounting five 24-inch monitors, to be connected to two quad display workstations. These displays were used to show the multiple different camera views along with the Milestone alarm manager and bespoke control room task manager software. The two 50-inch monitors displayed the Milestone Smartwall configured to display alerts and change layout based on events configured in the management application.
- The Siemens intruder alarm system consisting of three networked SPC6300 panels which were required to be able to send alerts and alarms to the Milestone Smartclient. This will be achieved by using serial to ethernet converters connected directly to the printer ports on the alarm panels and linked to the local network switches. The alarm panels communicates with the Milestone system using Milestone transact which is built into Milestone corporate. Specific events to be created once a text output from the alarm panels was matched and this, in turn, creating an alert to display in the alarm manager and on the Smartwall.
- The recording and archiving requirements include a retention time of 30 days with the existing analogue cameras running at D1 resolution and 5FPS. The new Axis PTZ cameras required to run at 1080P resolution and 5FPS. The video needs to have redundancy built in, in the event of a hard drive failure so a RAID 5 setup with a hot spare was used. Fault tolerance for 1 hard drive failure and immediate rebuild of the array with the hot spare on standby in the event of a failure.
Supply
- The supply of hardware and software for this project was coordinated by office management liaising with our distribution partners. This would include coordinating and arranging equipment such as servers, cameras, encoders, network switches, screens, IP rated enclosures, cabling etc and ensuring strict adherence to lead times to reduce the impact and potential delay of the installation.
Decommissioning and Disposal of existing security-related assets
The decommissioning of the existing security system follows a project plan which needed to be pre-approved by the client. This included:
- Decommission of the system;
- Documentation of the entire system to verify cameras which were out of service;
- Date agreed to bring system offline with consideration to impact on security staff;
- The system was taken offline and a temporary system put in place… the point of no return;
- Decommission completed;
- Removal of data from the system;
- Disposal of equipment.
