Largest independent UK integrator chooses Razberi based on its class leading solutions

13 Jun 2016

Kings Security Identifies Bandwidth Savings, Surveillance Health Monitoring, and Cyber Security Feature For Making Razberi Their Primary Product For IP CCTV Deployment

Overview

Kings Security, the UK’s largest independent security services provider, conducted an audit of the latest products available within the security industry to identify an innovative solution to offer to its vast customer base across the UK. Seeking a future proof solution, Kings needed to offer a migration path for their customers who wanted the benefits of an IP integrated system that could also be delivered with a high return on investment (ROI).

Deciding to utilise a platform which could seamlessly integrate into their business and deliver class leading solutions to their customers, Kings also needed a platform that could be monitored remotely via their dedicated alarm receiving centre. They wanted a scalable offering that could be delivered across thousands of sites regardless of location and available network bandwidth.

Challenge

With many customers, some of whom have several thousand sites, the key challenge for Kings was to deliver a high quality solution that could be replicated across these multi-site customers. Equally important, the solution needed to be easy to deploy and easy to support well into the future. Furthermore, the solution needed to be completely agnostic, allowing for flexibility with software deployed, and ensuring that Kings could offer their customers best of breed solutions for each individual application.

The solution needed to be able to scale from a small number of cameras connected at some sites, to many hundreds or thousands of cameras at other sites. In addition to scalability, it was clear that some customers lacked a high bandwidth network infrastructure, which often restricts the deployment of large IP based surveillance solutions. “It was clear that a solution was required which could mitigate the impact on a corporate network without compromising functionality or quality,” said Steve Evans, Chief Operating Officer for Kings Security.

Solution

When considering the diverse requirements of their customer base, and a solution which meets the strict standards that Kings Security applies across their business, the razberi™ ServerSwitch™ was the obvious choice as the primary product for Kings to use in IP CCTV deployment.

“The razberi™ ServerSwitch™ offers us a range of appliances, and enables us to offer fully integrated IP CCTV solutions of any size,” said Evans. “It is imperative to Kings that we use an agnostic platform, so that we can use any Video Management Software with the unit. This way we know that no matter which way the market moves, we can offer our customers the ultimate solution every time, rather than be restricted with a proprietary platform which lacks flexibility.”

Because the razberi™ ServerSwitch™ is purpose built for recording on the edge, video doesn’t enter the corporate network until retrieved by Kings Security for remote viewing, keeping network traffic to a minimum and dramatically reducing bandwidth requirements. This helps to ensure better video quality and reliability. Using razberi™ also reduces the number of IP addresses needed for installation, saving customers money.

In addition, Razberi recently introduced the LocBeri Cyber Security System and VyneWatch Surveillance Health Monitoring to further enhance the capability of the razberi™ appliance.

LocBeri, a new cybersecurity feature that’s standard on all razberi™ ServerSwitch™ units, allows the installer to prevent the unauthorized use of camera ports, and network access through those ports, with a single click. It scans attached cameras, automatically configures the appliance, and locks PoE camera ports to protect the network from cyber attack and preserve the integrity of the data on the razberi™ appliance.

“Cyber security is a huge concern for our customers,” Evans remarked. “It gives us an edge to be able to offer customers a solution that protects vulnerable camera ports from cyber attacks on the network.”

VyneWatch Surveillance Health Monitoring is the first cloud-based system that monitors both the health of the razberi™ ServerSwitch™, and the performance of each camera. This remote monitoring offers Kings Security a real time indication of the condition of each appliance and the ability to diagnose issues remotely such as hard drive issues or unusually high CPU load. In addition, monitoring each camera provides Kings with critical information on performance, such as video resolution, power levels, bandwidth, and the connection to the switch. It can even send the integrator an alert in the event that a perfectly operating camera sends a black or distorted screen due to tampering.

“The addition of the latest software tools have made a great difference in how we proactively monitor and preserve the security of our customers’ sites,” said Evans. “With Vynewatch, we always know how our razberi™ units and cameras are performing in the field, and we can act on information received long before a failure occurs. This is key to servicing our customers effectively”.

Results

Pre-Staging Saves Installation Time and Customer Disruption

Using the razberi™ ServerSwitch™, which provides server, switch, storage, and PoE camera power, enables Kings Security to deploy many new systems every month for its customers. In general, Kings ‘stages’ their systems in house at their state of the art technical facility. That means that each system is subject to a ‘virtual’ install before the system goes out. When the system is shipped to the site, it’s already configured and ready to go. Thanks to the use of razberi™ appliances, disruption on site is kept to a minimum and any potential issues are usually dealt with before the customer even sees the system.

Delivers Reliable Video While Using Less Bandwidth

Employing the razberi™ ServerSwitch™ enables Kings Security to gain higher quality video for their customers without taxing the corporate network. Bandwidth requirements are dramatically reduced because video isn’t constantly traveling over the network, and video has fewer quality issues and lost frames. They are also able to save their customers money by reducing the number of IP addresses required for installation.

LocBeri and VyneWatch Protects Customers

Once a system is deployed on the customer’s site, the cameras are configured with LocBeri to protect the network, and VyneWatch is implemented, giving Kings Security immediate remote monitoring capability. Vynewatch monitoring even helps during installation to report on any loss of connection or other problems encountered during deployment.

“Vynewatch and LocBeri are great additions to the razberi™ ServerSwitch™ and have already shown us that we can work more cost effectively to both protect our clients and respond to issues within the system,” said Evans. “Being able to deal with potential issues before they become problems is a great for our customers and for our business.”
Conclusion

The IP video platform, with the razberi™ ServerSwitch at its centre, has been a great success for Kings Security, and has proven itself to be a flexible, cost effective, and easy to support solution that offers high performance, security, and reliability in the field.

“We have used a number of systems over the years to deploy IP CCTV, and none have been as successful for Kings as the razberi™,” Evans concluded. “We have now incorporated razberi™ appliances into larger IP security solutions, and the ability to deploy video, access control, analytics and other IP functions on a single razberi™ ServerSwitch™ has allowed us to be more cost effective and offer a more seamless solution than our competitors.”

Discover more about the razberi™ appliance and what it can do for you at http://www.razberi.net