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 Traditional
school integrates traditional technology with state of The art security
monitoring devices
It may be a school with traditional
standards which can be traced back to 1572, but Harrow School has not
hesitated to invest in the latest generation of video surveillance
technology to protect its assets and create a safe and secure
environment for its students and tutors.
Harrow School has recently upgraded its
IP network video surveillance and has put its trust in a new Wavestore
hybrid recording solution, installed by IP specialists Ecl-ips, to
record and store high resolution images located throughout the school’s
campus.
Commonly known simply as "Harrow", the
independent school is situated in north-west London. It is one of the
original nine public schools that were defined by the Public Schools Act
1868 and can claim to have eight former Prime Ministers amongst its very
long list of famous ex-pupils. The School has an enrolment of 823 boys
all of whom board, and the video surveillance system is relied on just
as much by House Masters to assist with the pastoral care of the pupils,
as much as it is by the school’s security team to detect and deter
unwanted intruders.
The previously installed recording system
did not have the capability to keep up with our changing requirements,"
said Dr. Christopher O’Mahoney, Director of ICT, who together with his
security colleagues, has overseen the commissioning of the upgraded
video surveillance system. "It only had the capacity to record and store
two days worth of video, but more importantly, it was unable to record
images from a mixture of analogue and IP network cameras and that was
key to our decision to replace it."
   
Many of the School’s existing analogue
cameras, which had been installed some time ago, were still performing
well and so Dr. O’Mahoney and his colleagues were reluctant to incur the
cost of replacing them. "Some of these older cameras did however
need to be replaced because they were in locations where we wanted to
see higher resolution images. We also had a requirement to introduce
additional cameras in new locations and it made sense for these to be
the latest generation of IP network cameras," said Dr. O’Mahoney.
Many of the School’s existing analogue cameras, which
had been installed some time ago, were still performing well and so Dr.
O’Mahoney and his colleagues were reluctant to incur the cost of
replacing them. "Some of these older cameras did however need to be
replaced because they were in locations where we wanted to see higher
resolution images. We also had a requirement to introduce additional
cameras in new locations
and it made sense for these to be the latest generation
of IP network cameras," said Dr. O’Mahoney. The school invited a number
of installers to participate in a tender process to supply and install a
new recording solution, new IP network cameras and IP encoders to allow
the images from existing analogue cameras to be viewed from anywhere on
the network. The contract was subsequently awarded to IP network
security threat management specialists, Ecl-ips, "The hybrid Wavestore
Rock digital recording solution was an obvious choice for us for this
project," said Aaron Kernaghan, Managing Director of Worcester based
Ecl-ips. "It is designed to work with any combination of analogue and IP
network cameras, as well as 360 degree cameras, and this ability made
the Rock an ideal match for Harrow School."
 The School now has a total of 50 cameras and these
include a number of Axis IP cameras, Mobotix M12 megapixel weatherproof
Day/Night cameras and weatherproof Mobotix Q24 360 degree hemispheric IP
dome cameras. The security team can view images from any of the cameras
either from the central control room or any PC on the network, whilst
each of the school’s 12 House Masters are authorised to view the
activity captured by the cameras installed in locations relevant to
their individual areas of responsibility. The two 32 channel Wavestore
Rock recorders are grouped together to provide the capacity to record
and store images from all the cameras for 21 days and provide the school
with the option to add additional cameras in the future, if required.
"We are delighted with the performance of the upgraded system and the
investment we have made over the last twelve months has certainly been
worthwhile," said Dr O’Mahoney. "There are regular incidents of
trespassers entering the campus and the very high quality of the
recorded images has proved to be invaluable to our security team, as has
the ability to search for video of incidents which may have taken place
up to three weeks ago.
 Our House Masters have also provided extremely positive
feedback on the quality of the images which is making it so much easier
for them to use the surveillance system to help them provide the highest
level of pastoral care." Wavestore works closely with third party
technology partners to provide video analytics, facial recognition,
motion detection, license plate recognition, abandoned object and
intruder detection, people counting, perimeter security detection and
traffic monitoring solutions.
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