New York courts find security in IP video

Network World - NEW YORK - You've heard of the long arm of the law: In New York, eyesight and memory stretch pretty far, too.
The New York State Unified Court System recently put the finishing touches on a network of more than 350 IP video surveillance cameras. These network-attached eyeballs record every minute of every day in all New York court facilities statewide and link to a multi-terabyte storage system, giving court security officials a powerful tool to monitor and protect their facilities.
But for the court's IT group, high-bandwidth video is just another stream on an IP network built several years ago with enormous capacity, now tapped to deploy a variety of advanced services.
Also supported is a 10,000-seat IP telephony network and more than 100 IP videoconferencing units. Overall, these systems save the courts about $1 million per year on various voice and video costs, and allow for advanced services such as comprehensive video surveillance, which were once cost-prohibitive.
The courts last year rolled out a limited IP video surveillance system, based on open source software written in-house. This pilot system, assembled using Linux scripts and commodity IP cameras, installed on a shoestring budget, got the attention of court system security officials, says CTO Sheng Guo.
"The solution proved to be a good experience, but it did not provide video-recording functionality and other advanced features," he says.
The pace of Guo's IP surveillance rollout accelerated this spring, sparked in part by a widely publicized courthouse shooting in Atlanta in March. New York courts have had closed-circuit video for years, but only on the outside of a few key buildings and main traffic areas. Security officials wanted continuous surveillance in all courthouses and the ability to review video weeks or months after an incident.

Super surveillance
A hundred cameras were added earlier this year - new IP cameras from Axis Communications, as well as older analog cameras fitted with IP encoders and attached to the LAN. The court system also installed a software suite called NetGuard from On-Net Surveillance Systems that controls all of the court system's cameras, plus video archival from Axis.
At the court's downtown Manhattan security command center, officers watch video on an array of flat panel displays, showing the court's most heavily trafficked sites. Through an interface that mimics Internet Explorer, an officer can expand a directory of icons, representing all courthouses and facilities. Clicking on each icon reveals locations at each site under IP video surveillance. One click deeper, and a window is launched with a