A Central Structure

May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY STEPHANIE SILK

The Pointe-de-I'ile School Board in Montreal includes 70 buildings, a student population of 29,000 children and 9,000 adults annually and a staff of 4,500 employees. When street gang violence, student loitering and property extortion became problems, the board sought a resolution.

Denis Fréchette, director of information technology services for the Pointe-de-I'ile School Board, says that they were looking to ensure the security of students and buildings, but wanted to dissuade bad activity instead of just observing and recording the events.

Some of the buildings had security guards; however the board wanted technology to augment their efforts. A limited budget was an additional challenge. “There is always a financial requirement to have the best quality at the best price. Our budgets, like most across the continent, are always under pressure,” Fréchette says. “However, if we can diminish the vandalism, we wouldn't have to increase our budget because the cost for building maintenance would either drop or be the same.”

Because of the size of the project the board wanted to undergo, the school board retained the services of an independent engineering firm. They reviewed the bid request and the responses, and ultimately selected Kolossal Technologies through integrator BW Solutions.

Kolossal Technologies, a division of Montreal-based Securite Kolossal that focuses on security consulting, integration and advanced monitoring solutions, offers the Security Operations Center (SOC), a software- and hardware-based system for real-time monitoring of multiple surveillance devices. They combine training, planning and command for remotely controlling a security situation. By integrating video with encrypted images through an IP network, the result is a tele-surveillance system that runs on a fiber network storing all video content on a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) server.

Ben Noury, president of BW Solutions, says that the client can either manage its own solutions or have his company do so. “We can integrate any other alternatives within the SOC, giving the client more flexibility and control,” Noury says. “Ours is a one-stop shop for security.”

Although Fréchette says they chose the SOC because it was the best quality and cost solution for the schools, the board orchestrated a test experiment within a few schools before committing all 70 buildings to the solution. The trial lasted four months. “After our own positive experience and an equally positive report from our engineering team and a third party engineering firm, we proceeded with the roll-out,” Fréchette says. The roll-out included Kolossal providing customized survey plans, cable installation, camera encoders, servers and also training the employees. Training was necessary because, according to Fréchette, each school accesses its own camera network. That represents approximately 140 managers and seven security officers.

Because of the large population of the schools and the vast distance between the buildings, the SOC is fitting because in one centralized location, Kolossal includes video analysis, integration of access control, HVAC and sensors. Noury says of the centralized system: “It resolves problems with clients who have many different networks that are not communicating with each other. We integrate these in a simple end-to-end solution within one location, and each SOC can be scalable.”

Fréchette says the board is very satisfied with the solution, and that they are convinced they will be able to dissuade people from vandalism and committing violent acts. However, he points out that the school market poses a unique challenge for the security industry because of the legal obligation to protect students within schools. “With such a large population of students, we have vandalism and we work directly with the police to fight this criminality. In an emergency situation, which has occurred in both our schools and elsewhere, this technology allows us to stream the video feeds directly to the police forces,” Fréchette says. “We need to push the technology and ourselves to the limits to protect our students.”

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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