Security & Monitoring

Yes, by using a specialist ISP for the security sector. General business providers will carry out overnight maintenance to affect fewer of their customers who mainly work regular office hours. Specialist ISPs that have an understanding of the security sector and not only avoid maintenance during peak overnight monitoring times, but if it can’t be avoided, they plan any work well in advance so disruption is minimised.

To make this process simple, whilst maintaining a high level of security you should use a private, rather than internet-based, connection to the CCTV cameras. By removing the cyber security risks associated with the public internet there is no longer a need to secure the connection with a firewall. Private networks still operate over long distances and use the same physical connections as the normal internet, but it’s configured in a way that means it never actually ‘breaks out’ to the public internet and is only accessible to other trusted devices on the same private network.

We know our monitoring customers require multiple connections at the data centre as part of their NSI accreditation, so it is really important if these are used as backup, all systems still work, even with IP address changes.  we have multiple connections at our monitoring centre, but when we have to use one of them as a backup when the main connection has a problem much of our remote monitoring doesn’t work as the IP address changes, is there any workarounds for this?

IP addresses change when using backup connections as each internet connection is given a different IP address by the provider. For CCTV monitoring centres it’s possible for a specialist provider to design a bespoke private network, where the main IP address is the same regardless of whether a primary or backup connection is used.

Make sure you are using a separate connection for the CCTV cameras. This avoids reliability issues from the client’s connection, often caused by competition for the bandwidth from many users and systems. This can be further enhanced by using a private network, rather than the public internet, as this avoids uncontrollable reliability factors inherent in the public internet.

In basic terms the router used for the private network can be directly connected to CCTV system, bypassing the client’s firewall entirely.

The problems of using the public internet for CTTV monitoring include reliability, performance and speed of support.

Public internet networks are complex, are made up of many pieces of shared infrastructure and are used by a larger number of customers, all competing for bandwidth. As a result, it’s not uncommon for there to be reliability issues, periods of slower speeds and drop outs. While these can be frustrating for many businesses these aren’t critical, however for CCTV monitoring these reliability and performance issues can interrupt monitoring, which can in turn affect the ability to safeguard personnel or protect assets.

Many internet providers operate a call centre approach to support. These typically mean that faults and support issues take a long time to report and resolve. If a line fault has affected the ability to monitor a client’s site there are safety and security risks which need the service to be resumed as quickly as possible.

The alternative is to use a private network and a specialist provider. By using private connections, not using the public internet, the reliability and performance issues are avoided. Private connections do not suffer from the same congestion and by design have fewer point of infrastructure to pass through, making them more reliable and better performing.

Using a specialist provider, who adhere to tight service level agreements with direct access to expert support teams means that any faults can be reported quickly and the faults resolve swiftly.

If there is a power cut or line fault it’s possible to keep monitoring a client’s CCTV cameras using a mobile data signal. Specialist hardware includes a 3G or 4G sim card and the ability to automatically start to use mobile data if the main connection is offline for any reason, of course the equipment would need a backup power source, like an uninterrupted power supply (UPC).