Milestone Systems, a provider of open platform IP video management software (VMS), recently announced that it formed the centerpiece of a major surveillance upgrade in a 1,500 pupil school based in East London, UK, called the Brampton Manor Academy.
The academy benefitted from a £10 million injection of capital from a ‘Building Schools for the Future’ program, for major renovation of its main building and grounds in 2009, prompting the decision to improve their security system. Milestone partner Security Systems Technology (SST) carried out the specification, installation and configuration work for the security system upgrade.
The deployed platform consists of 112 Arecont Vision, Axis, Mobotix and Sanyo IP cameras in addition to 33 legacy CCTV analog cameras -- all being managed by Milestone XProtect Enterprise IP video software, running on three Dell servers. The video recordings are archived on three RAID-5 arrays.
Graham Glass, Director of Finance and Administration at Brampton Manor Academy, said, “Milestone XProtect has proved to be a very intuitive system for viewing a wide mix of cameras -- the interface is easy to manage. Milestone partner SST keeps us up to speed with technical enhancements, which Milestone is continually bringing to XProtect, to keep our initial security investment future proof.”
The benefits of the Milestone open platform architecture are clear to Glass, who oversaw the installation, subsequent upgrade and expansion of the new surveillance system by SST. He added, “Coverage is now excellent. If there is an incident, we can find it quickly in the Milestone XProtect software and use the video, and in some cases audio, evidence to tackle any wrong-doing, which is now very rare.”
According to Milestone, Brampton Manor Academy now has a surveillance system which serves its security needs today but is also capable of integrating with other building management systems over time, such as access control in a facility expansion to be completed in late 2012. The Milestone XProtect system integrated with Paxton access control in the new building will help academy staff to place trust in the 16-18 year olds to use their swipe cards when entering restricted area, rather than having to be physically on hand to unlock rooms where valuable equipment is located.
Glenn Fletcher, Milestone Systems UK General Manager, commented, “This installation by SST shows that Milestone XProtect Enterprise is a future-proof video management platform ideal for long-term flexibility. Taking feeds from CCTV cameras as well as the latest IP devices from a wide range of manufacturers, and offering integration with access control or other systems shows the versatility of Milestone software.”