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Securing temporary events with
affordable agility of cloud Services
While city law enforcement and
event hosts typically have their
own security infrastructure in
place, expanded coverage is often
required to safeguard crowds, ma-
nage flow of pedestrian and vehicle
traffic, and identify and quickly
diffuse possible threats. On a
day-to-day basis, cities also face
other unplanned events such as
unanticipated political gatherings,
crime spikes, or emergency road
closures which also require added
surveillance of an area within a
moment's notice.
For these reasons, temporary
security applications for short-
term projects are increasingly
in demand by cities around the
world. Understandably, law enfor-
cement and event organisers have
a hard time justifying additional
investments in permanent security
infrastructure for events that last
a few days or weeks. Instead, they
are seeking short-term security so-
lutions that can be easily deployed
and quickly removed. They are
also looking for flexible solutions
that will accommodate event areas
with limited power or network
connectivity, and buying models
with shorter usage terms for both
software and other equipment.
Helps cities expand
surveillance coverage
Requirements for more flexible
and temporary ownership of secu-
rity systems have more cities and
organisations considering cloud-
based Security-as-a-Service (SaaS)
solutions. It allows organizations
to deploy surveillance systems
for a cost-effective monthly fee,
avoiding the need for approvals or
sourcing the means for lump-sum
capital expenditures to procure
more on-premises servers. Cloud
services also eliminate the need to
find additional rack space, and the
requirements to cool, power and
maintain storage hardware, while
freeing up valuable IT resources.
Greater flexibility
Specifically engineered and
maintained in secure data centres,
cloud solutions such as Video
Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSaaS)
and Federation-as-a-Service (FaaS)
provide greater agility and flexibi-
lity in deploying video surveillance
systems, in expanding storage or
in managing multiple remote loca-
tions from one central command
centre. With SaaS, temporary
systems can be up and running in
very little time, requiring fewer
resources to deploy and dismantle
at the end of the event.
For additional flexibility, cities
that invest in open architecture
cloud-based solutions are primed
for better system design. With
open SaaS solutions, cities can
select the preferred video devices.
This could include cameras with
analytics on-board, or all-in-
one police observation devices
(PODS) offered by Genetec
technology partner, Solidbot (Bel-
gium). Solidbot is a mobile video
surveillance unit, which comes
with built-in power generation,
cellular or wireless network con-
nectivity, and device discovery and
configuration tools for faster im-
plementation of edge devices set
up for added surveillance. Fully
cloud-enabled video management
software solutions can be activated
for the duration of the event, or
hardware can be purchased and
re-used for numerous events. Easy,
cloud based SaaS subscriptions
allow cities to add the specific
number of camera connections for
the duration of the event.
Cities can also leverage existing
security infrastructure and deploy
hybrid models, adding new
cameras with cloud connections,
or expanding storage for event-
related needs while still keeping
on premises servers for existing
technologies and uses. Then FaaS
can be used to bring multiple
systems, whether cloud-based or
on-premises, back to one central
command centre without ad-
ditional server or administration
requirements.
LAPD benefitted from FaaS
One of the most impressive
examples of securing temporary
events was demonstrated at the
2015 Special Olympics World
Games (LA2015) held in Los
Angeles, California. The Los Ang-
eles Police Department (LAPD)
needed to centralise the surveil-
lance across multiple disparate sys-
tems from multiple event venues
in Los Angeles and the nearby city
of Long Beach, California.
The LAPD leveraged the
Federation-as-a-Service capability
feature in Genetec Omnicas, the
video surveillance system of Se-
curity Center. Since many venues
were already running Security
Center systems, the LAPD were
able to deploy the highly-scalable
cloud service, to connect their
command post across the multiple
sites and monitor over 400 video
cameras. Installation of the service
was easy as no on-site servers were
required, and the cloud-enabled
Federation feature facilitated a
seamless connection across all the
distributed sites.
According to Commander
Dennis Kato, LAPD Planning
Group, Special Olympics World
Games Organizing Committee, "
Genetec Federation-as-a-Service
allowed us to pull video from our
partners which was crucial to the
security of the games as it ensured
our command post operated ef-
ficiently and smoothly."
ensuring successful
events and safer cities
As more planned and unplanned
temporary events draw crowds of
locals and visitors, cities will re-
quire more agility and cost-friendly
solutions in expanding surveillance
coverage. Cloud-based solutions
such as VSaaS and FaaS, and new
subscription-based buying models
are attractive solutions for tem-
porary event organisers who can
now minimize hardware expenses,
and affordably ramp up their secu-
rity for the duration of the event.
Ultimately, this added security
helps cities keep potential threats
at bay, and ensures the success of
many anticipated, and sometimes
unplanned, city events.
Parades, festivals, concerts, and sports events enliven
communities and stimulate economies. They also draw
hundreds-or-thousands of people to specific areas or
districts, for a limited duration of time. For the host ci-
ties and organisers, ensuring a successful event requi-
res a lot of planning, and one crucial aspect of that is
security, writes Nick d'hoedt, Genetec, in this article.
The author of the article: Nick D'hoedt, Regional Sales Director for Scandinavia,
Benelux and DAC, for Genetec.
Temporary secu-
rity applications
for short-term
projects are increasingly in
demand by cities around
the world.
By Nick D'hoedt, Regional Sales Director, Genetec
Det INT 2_16.indd 6
2016-04-12 15:03