Case Study: Milestone – SUNY-Buffalo Expanding Campus-wide Security – Buffalo, USA

10 Years Going and SUNY-Buffalo Still Expanding Campus-wide Security with 
Milestone Software
The Challenge
After successfully implementing Milestone IP video as a security solution in
the Campus Dining and Food Shop, medical school and athletics departments,
the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo (UB) and systems integrator
Digital Surveillance Solutions (DSS) have set out to create a widespread,
standardized platform across all locations with a centralized command,
managed by the University’s Central Computing department.
The Solution
IP network cameras were first installed in 2004 at UB. Today, Milestone XProtect
Corporate video management software (VMS) connects nearly 800 devices
across the University at Buffalo campuses, and the system continues to grow.
The surveillance hardware is a best-in-class mix of various Axis static and PTZ
cameras.
The university has deployed Blue Light emergency phones around campus,
which are integrated with Milestone’s open platform architecture. When
someone picks up a Blue Light phone to make a call, that data goes through the
milestone rules engine which is set up to move the nearest Axis PTZ camera to
view the phone station, provide real-time situational awareness and record the
video. As a call comes into police dispatch, Milestone “pops” the image of the
phone calling in on a large monitor and the operator has instant awareness of
alerting location.
“About a year ago, DSS took over the maintenance contract for our Blue Light
phones. Since then, they have repaired issues that the previous vendor had
been unable to resolve for years,” said Joshua B. Sticht, Deputy Chief of Police,
Operations, University at Buffalo. “DSS stepped in and got the system operating
as expected. Also, a contractor recently damaged the protective dome of an
exterior camera. When we contacted DSS the next morning to place a work
order, they already knew of the problem and had arranged for replacement
parts. They have been extremely proactive.”
In recent years as new projects and departments come on board, like the School
of Engineering and the Educational Opportunity Center, the university continues
to develop best practices. Slowly, they are coalescing around a centralized
platform that’s managed by Central Computing (CIT) and utilized by UB campus
police. Campus police have access to camera views across the campus, but they
share the management responsibilities with Central Computing.
“Central Computing does a great job of managing the system and providing high
quality process and procedure for access to the system, making sure everything is
secure, backed up and properly maintained,” said Michael Blumenson, President,
Digital Surveillance Solutions.
There is also a support contract component with the system that DSS has been
awarded, to maintain the Milestone XProtect Corporate software, Axis cameras
and emergency telephones that are deployed campus-wide.
“We’re trying to move the whole university toward an efficient, full centralization
of all cameras and surveillance recording systems, but it’s a heavy lift requiring
a great deal of coordination with decentralized decision-making on a very big
university platform,” said Blumenson.
Advantages
In choosing Milestone, UB has gained flexibility and scalability, efficient
centralized administration, wide geographic distribution, Power-over-Ethernet
hardware, cost efficiencies of using the standard IT resources – both the
equipment and network infrastructure, as well as the IT Department’s expertise
and maintenance routines for keeping the system up and running, upgrading
and expanding as needed
Certain departments have taken advantage of the new security system in
place—especially those which deal with expensive and dangerous materials. For
example, the Chemistry Department has material handling issues. They need to
make sure that only authorized people are using the equipment and materials,
which must be locked up securely. There are instances where they need to
monitor experiments, research procedures, and the proper disposal of waste, etc.
The medical school has similar challenges, with its biological agent research lab
that must follow not only the school’s safety rules, but also federal requirements
for security.
Central Computing stores video data for 30 days’ availability online, which is
then sent to tape as a backup archive. Some departments hold on to video for
two to three weeks, unless special instances require more retention. Campus
police have live monitors in dispatch, so a dispatcher is consistently interacting
with the system and can react quickly to alert officers in case of an incident.
Distributed Architecture
The University at Buffalo is the largest and most comprehensive campus in the
64-campus the SUNY system. The buildings crawl along what is called ‘the spine’
that connects them. The distributed architectural design was a conscious de-
centralized approach to discourage too many people congregating in any one
place, in response to the riots of the late 1960’s and early 70’s when ground was
broken on this site.
Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS) is the department within IT that houses
the servers and controls the network security campus-wide. There are 30,000
students across 3 campuses: north, south and downtown. Back in the 1970s,
all IT services were centralized, but then after the expansion of computing and
networking, the outlying departments weren’t getting enough service, so
they created 5 major IT nodes across different areas of the university, including
the medical school, engineering and life sciences. Each has its own IT staff in
addition to Central Computing.
Lighting up safety issues
Although the university was using older analog technology, around 2001
Blumenson saw an opportunity. He was working in IT on different client server
projects and his boss approached him with a problem.
“It looked like someone was misusing materials and computers in the research
laboratories at the medical school, and he asked if anyone wanted to start
working on setting up some cameras,” said Blumenson. “I thought it sounded
interesting so I raised my hand and took it on.”
What began as small experiments in different spaces quickly became real
installations in computing labs, anatomy labs, storage areas, data centers and
office spaces. It started morphing and just kept growing. Any time there was an
issue relating to theft, vandalism or misuse, Blumenson would figure out a way
to put a video camera there.
Through experimentation, they started out with little USB web cameras, which
would run into inexpensive recording software on PCs.
“We’d do crazy things like cobble together USB cords and throw these things
over a wall, letting them hang there to cover a hallway or adjacent office, but it
worked,” said Blumenson. “We were capturing footage of people stealing things,
and overall started to control the environment, but it was hard to manage.”
Blumenson began looking at more sophisticated systems like Milestone IP video
software so he could better manage things, automate recording and archiving,
and make it easier for people to have credentialed access to the video. More
requests started coming in from different administrators, so accessibility grew in
importance.
“It wasn’t a recognition that IP video was the up-and-coming way to go, it was
sort of happenstance,” said Blumenson. “I was working in IT and looking for
devices that would work on the network, because we had a lot of infrastructure
for the network. Milestone turned out the be the perfect solution.”
In 2007 the New York State Power Authority began offering grants to public
institutions that would replace or upgrade lighting. A lot of bigger college
campuses in New York were able to add other elements into those lighting
projects, relating to security.
“Milestone had become a de facto standard because of all the smaller projects
that had been put in place over the preceding five years,” said Blumenson.
“When the big bid went out to get the grant, Milestone XProtect Corporate was
the key component.”
Open platform IP video enables continued growth
Opportunities for expansion continue, as UB is growing in the downtown
corridor. In the next year, the medical school is putting up a beautiful new
building with 200-300 cameras, all connected via Milestone.
More new buildings are under construction, so new projects abound such as
perimeter monitoring, parking lots and other areas needing security.
As more people in the university saw what DSS could accomplish with their early
systems, it wasn’t long before they wanted camera systems of their own. More
departments want the security coverage of assets that are increasingly more
valuable and therefore riskier to lose or have damaged. Milestone XProtect
Corporate provides the flexible platform to scale out the system over time.
APPLICATIONS build nvr custom nvr INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS LEARNING CENTER Milestone XProtect RESOURCES SERVICES TECHNOLOGY Video Surveillance