Unlocking Ancient Rome

Dec 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Corrina Stellitano

In today's Las Vegas, ancient Rome is bustling with growth, expansion and renovation. Caesars Palace, a Park Place casino and entertainment complex, is undergoing a $376 million transformation that includes a 949-room, 26-story luxury hotel tower and a 140,000-square-foot convention center expansion costing more than $75 million.

This newest renovation follows other huge projects, including the 4,100-seat Colosseum at Caesars Palace, which opened in March 2003 as home to Celine Dion's long-running performance series; The Roman Plaza dining, retail and entertainment center, to be finished this spring atop a recently constructed 500-bay underground parking garage; and a sweeping new gateway connecting the new Colosseum with the historic porte-cochere entrance to Caesars Palace.

Las Vegas resorts often bank on their ability to combine the splendor of a glorious past with the promise of present riches. But building a replica of the past, while outfitting it with the latest technologies and amenities can challenge technology providers and administrators.

Securing the Caesars Palace Convention Center

The Palace uses several systems to manage employee ID badges and employee and guest access to the convention center meeting rooms and ballrooms, hotel guest rooms and suites, parking garages, and the IT data center. Frank Guckin leads Caesars Palace's six-person locksmith shop, which oversees these separate access control systems, and more than 2,800 electronic locks at the hotel and convention center.

Several years ago, Guckin and Palace management decided to control convention center meeting room doors electronically, replacing the mechanical exit trim and key system. Because the computer-managed locks would be integrated into existing facilities that sprawl over 88 acres, hardwiring to an access control system would be cost-prohibitive, Guckin said. The Palace needed standalone locks that could mate well with existing Von Duprin egress hardware.

Guckin also preferred proximity credentials over credentials with magnetic stripes. Experience had taught him a lesson, he says. “We've found over a period of time we were replacing either the magnetic lock or cards at a higher rate in harsh environments.”

Guckin selected a Locknetics On Board standalone access control system by IR Security & Safety's Electronic Access Control Division, Forestville, Conn. Von Duprin computer-managed CM993 access trim would work with Von Duprin 98/99 exit bars to secure meeting rooms and convention halls.

“With the CM solution, all we had to do was remove the existing mechanical trim and replace it with new computer-managed trim,” Guckin says. A typical installation took only seven minutes.

For credentials, the Caesars Palace executives chose proximity cards or, more commonly, proximity key fobs. The ability to gather an audit trail of 1,000 events and to deactivate a customer's credential after a pre-programmed stay were invaluable, says Guckin.

“With the old keylocks, it became a ‘he said, she said’ sort of situation. Now we have a definitive paper trail,” he explains. “If they don't return it (the key) — no problem. The keys are a small cost, which is more than covered by the rent for the space.”

The locks are set in toggle mode: one wave of the fob in front of the reader on the trim unlocks the door, the next wave locks the door. In this way, seminar leaders can leave their meeting room open throughout the day, and then quickly and conveniently lock the room at night. The doors also automatically lock at midnight using the SmarTime feature.

To reprogram the CM trim, the Caesars Palace locksmith staff uses a Compaq iPAQ PDA with downloaded programming files from LockLink software installed on a desktop in the locksmith shop. An interface cable attaches the PDA to the CM trim.

“I prefer an existing platform rather than proprietary PDAs,” Guckin says. Because the Compaq PDA isn't proprietary, it is also easier to replace. “If the Compaq runs bad on us, I can run down to the local computer store, buy one on the company credit card, download software, and be up in minutes.”

In addition to the Von Duprin CM993 trim, the LockLink software on the Compaq iPaq can also program Schlage CM locks or the biometric hand geometry readers by IR Recognition Systems used in the casinos.

Pairing Recognition Systems readers with the Morse Watchman KeyWatcher case in the casino also allows workmen to pick up keys only on workdays. “We eliminated the need to have someone there around the clock simply handing out keys. At the same time, we maximized efficiency and we definitely got a higher return on investment,” Guckin says.

Today, 300 Von Duprin CM993's are in place in the convention center. Doors in the Coliseum are also guarded by 40 CM993s. As construction on the 15-month expansion continues — adding a 36,400 square-foot ballroom and several junior ballrooms — more than 200 CM locks will be added.

Recently, Von Duprin improvements on its emergency egress hardware have also been put into action in convention center ballrooms. The 98/99 exit bars sometimes obtruded into the path of passing linen and food carts, causing unnecessary damage, Guckin says. The Von Duprin INPACT is recessed into the door; its tapered edges and 11/4-inch projection from the door face make it less intrusive to passing traffic.

Guarding the Guests of Caesar

For the new hotel tower, to be located on the south property perimeter overlooking the 4.5-acre Garden of the Gods pool complex, Caesars Palace needs a locking solution that can combine traditional and more innovative technologies. The $289 million, 345-foot-tall tower will bring the total number of rooms to more than 3,370.

The existing 2,420 guest rooms in Caesars Palace are protected by magnetic stripe card readers by VingCard Lock Systems. Each lock can audit 100 transactions, and the audit trail is accessed with the multi-function Compaq iPAQ PDA. Overall data is coordinated with the VingCard 3000 system.

For the new tower, Guckin wants to continue using VingCard products. The Assa Abloy subsidiary, with U.S. headquarters based in Dallas, creates very sturdy mortis card reader locks, he explains. “There is very little downtime in the way of lock failures,” he says. “They don't tend to break from daily wear and tear.”

For the new 1,000 rooms, however, Guckin wants to add another feature — smart card technology. While the guests would continue to use keys with magnetic stripes, guest room attendants, bellhops, room service personnel and security officers would be armed with credentials with both magnetic stripes and smart card capabilities.

In this way, the Caesars Palace security staff could track staff members' access to guest rooms without visiting each room with the PDA. “If there was an incident, I can ask the staff member for a key and do an audit on the key; or if someone damaged the lock, I can do an audit of all keys with access to that lock,” Guckin says.

In his tenure at the Palace, Guckin has seen some outrageous attempts to breach secure locks, from removing the batteries to running the key card through more than 100 times in an attempt to erase an entry in the data trail. “They just don't realize that all this has been accounted for,” he says.

At $4 to $15 each, the smart card keys are costly to issue simply as room keys. In the future, the cards could be used as permanent badges for members of a casino players tracking program. Each time a guest visits, the card/room key could be updated for personalized activities and incentives. The City of Las Vegas has also discussed using the smart cards as fare cards for its new monorail system.

“I think that's the next technology we'll be moving toward in hospitality,” Guckin says. “We've used metal keys, electromechanical locks, magnetic stripes, and I think the one that's going to offer us the security of the future is the smart card. But for most places, it's cost-prohibitive unless you can give it more than one use. Aside from opening the doors, what else can it do?”

In order to continue using both magnetic stripes and smart card capabilities, “we need the new locks to be backward-compatible until we can retrofit,” Guckin says. “I need a base software at the desk that would work with the magnetic stripe and the smart card.”

Adding to its benefits as a manufacturer, VingCard was also willing to modify its products for Caesars Palace. Typically, if the smart card lock runs low on battery power, it blocks anyone from entering. Through changes in software, VingCard ensured that at Caesars Palace, guests' credentials would continue to be accepted by a failing lock, but housekeeping, engineering and security would be blocked from entering. The arrangement encouraged staff members to report locks with low battery levels to the locksmith shop.

“They're pretty good about telling us when they can't get into a room to do their work, but they weren't always good about telling us when the batteries were running low,” Guckin says. “In the hospitality business, you want to minimize any inconvenience to the guest and we thought this was a pretty simple one to accomplish.”

More Changes to Come

An existing system manages employee ID badges, access to employee parking garages and access to the IT data center. Caesars Palace has begun surveying providers and plans to replace the system in the coming year. Functionality, in part, inspired the switch, Guckin says.

“If an employee were terminated, we wanted the ability to pull up their picture and print it out to distribute to security, and (we wanted the ability) to terminate their access rights to their badge immediately. We also wanted a system to give us live feedback in monitoring specific access points,” he says.

With the new expansions creating more than 500 new jobs at Caesars Palace, a new access control system for employee IDs would be especially useful, Guckin says. The new system will link with Locknetics' software. Then when new hires arrive, their security privileges will be encoded in their proximity ID cards or fobs. Lockmith office staff members will then update the applicable locks using the PDA.

Such cross-platform applications are essential for a huge resort the size of Caesars Palace, Guckin says. “We've always looked for something where we didn't have to reinvent the wheel, or where there wasn't a high learning curve,” he says. And if you're working to reinvent Rome, who has time to reinvent the wheel?

For the Record

ABOUT THE COMPANIES

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com

IR Security & Safety/Locknetics	24
IR Security & Safety/Recognition Systems	25
IR Security & Safety/Schlage	26
IR Security & Safety/Von Duprin.	27
Morse Watchman	28
VingCard Lock Systems	29

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