Every educational facility is a serious security challenge and Australian Catholic University is no exception to that rule. The ACU has a sprawling campus spread across the bustle of North Sydney’s CBD but the responsibilities of its National Security Centre extend further afield than that.
AUSTRALIAN Catholic University is an iconic institution, incorporating multiple campuses Australia-wide. More than 10,000 students, teachers and visitors attend these campuses each day. Situated at the heart of the North Sydney Campus, which includes multiple buildings that span 4 inner-city blocks, sits ACU’s National Security Centre (NSC) and its security team. Members of the team really do have their work cut out for them, monitoring the safety and security of onsite personnel across all campuses 24 hours a day, 7-day a week.
The ACU NSC was originally established to monitor the numerous CCTV systems installed across its multiple campuses, but now operates as an in-house alarm monitoring centre for all campus security and CCTV systems. To enable monitoring of their alarms in-house, the ACU required software that could integrate their current systems and enable them to run an effective security operation. So began their search for a total business solution that could not only meet their needs for monitoring CCTV footage on an already established system, but integrate alarm monitoring as well.
The team’s research led to CAMS – an operations powerhouse with the ability to combine live video and alarm monitoring, streamlining every facet of their monitoring centre operation, with minimal disruption to their existing systems and processes. Currently the new system is working well, and meeting all the ACU’s needs. Powered by SQL, the CAMS system is completely scalable, giving the NSC the ability to monitor anywhere from one to one million assets. Unrivaled in performance, CAMS will grow with all future needs of the ACU.
“ACU has been making huge leaps when it comes to investing in the latest technology and the ability to monitor our own assets has proven to be a major success story,” said Bob Pagett, manager – security and compliance, ACU.
With numerous operators at the NSC having no prior training on the CAMS monitoring centre software, the migration to the CAMS system was extremely successful. Due in most part to the intuitive functionality and automated processing that the CAMS system prides itself on. After just one training session, the operators found the software extremely easy to use and navigate.
“The installation process has been easy and pain-free and we found the Suretek team headed by Mark Hatton wonderful to deal with,” Pagett says. “We would most definitely recommend CAMS to other users.”
According to Mark Hatton, Suretek’s BDM, the entire process has been surprisingly easy.
“After installing servers, receivers and CAMS 9, we cut-over to live monitoring traffic in a single afternoon and basically didn’t receive a call for several days,” he says. “This is atypical for a new install, especially since the security team at ACU had practically zero operational experience with CAMS. We’ve had the odd call since, but very little contact otherwise, and they are very happy with the outcome.”
Looking to the future, Pagett says ACU NSC wants to collaborate with Suretek to integrate Avigilon CCTV, to enable CCTV coverage from the nearest camera upon alarm activation.
This is well within the capabilities of CAMS, according to Hatton.
“When it comes to integration, CAMS is unparalleled, operating like a community project, with shared ideas and supported products being added all the time,” he explains. “The use of industry-leading, object-orienting programming techniques enables new formats, receivers and functionality to be easily added with minimal disruption, benefiting all CAMS users with contemporary versions.”
According to Hatton, the university is just one of thousands of customers protected by CAMS.
“Currently CAMS is in use in over 60 per cent of the central monitoring stations Australia-wide,” says Hatton. “If you’ve been thinking of migrating to a smarter, more intuitive alarm monitoring package that offers superior functionality and grows with your business, speak to Suretek about CAMS.” ♦
