Berklee College of Music Secures Campus 24/7 with Lenel s OnGuard Security Platform

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1 education Berklee College of Music Secures Campus 24/7 with Lenel s OnGuard Security Platform CASE STUDY Armed with OnGuard, Public Safety Department effectively manages wide range of security functions including access control, alarm monitoring, video surveillance and analysis, as well as ID credential issuance and management. Boston s Berklee College of Music is unique among other institutions of higher education. Founded more than 60 years ago, its guiding principle is that the best way to prepare students for careers in music is through the study and practice of contemporary music. In fact, Berklee is the world s largest independent college of contemporary music. With prestigious alumni that are a virtual who's who in the music industry, including such Grammy award winners as Melissa Etheridge, Bruce Hornsby, Quincy Jones, Diana Krall, Branford Marsalis, and John Mayer, it s hard to argue with Berklee s success. Given its reputation for musical excellence, it s not surprising that Berklee attracts the most gifted young musicians from around the globe. The college is home to about 4,200 students, of which 25 percent are international students who come from 85 different countries to study in downtown Boston. Because Berklee is located in an urban environment, The linchpin of Berklee s security system is Lenel s OnGuard security platform, which includes a full suite of security management capabilities

2 2 CASE STUDY : Berklee College of Music up with this demanding 24/7 environment, Berklee is adopting state-of-the-art security technology. Our students are musicians that often perform at shows and don t come back until the early hours of the morning, Costa said. We don t have eight or nine hours of downtime like some other college campuses. We re active all the time and need the best solutions the security industry has to offer. Tying It All Together the safety and security of its students and approximately 1,000 faculty and staff are of paramount importance. The Berklee Public Safety Department s mission is to provide professional expertise and standardized state-of-the-art technology products combined with superior responsive customer service, ensuring a safe and secure environment for the protection of its people, property and assets. Towards that end, the department maintains a constant presence, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With a large number of access points and thousands of people walking in and out of buildings on a daily basis, Berklee needed to create a safe environment for students, faculty and visitors, while protecting its assets, equipment and property. When looking for a centralized access control and security system to meet its demanding requirements on campus, Berklee turned to Lenel Systems International, a leading provider of software and turnkey systems that has secured more than a thousand educational facilities around the world. According to Nicholas Costa, Systems Manager at Berklee, the college s access control equipment is constantly being run through its paces and requires a robust system. To keep The linchpin of Berklee s security system is Lenel s OnGuard security platform, which includes a full suite of security management capabilities based on an open architecture, providing the college with a comprehensive and robust security solution that is seamlessly integrated into a single system. Berklee relies on GS Security, one of New England s leading security systems integrators, for installation and integration support. GS Security provides top-tier expertise in Lenel products and has worked closely on an on-going basis with the Berklee public safety department to implement a comprehensive, best-in-class security solution. Armed with the OnGuard platform, Berklee is able to effectively manage a wide range of security functions including access control, alarm monitoring, video surveillance and analysis, as well as ID credential issuance and management. The college s security system includes almost 200 card readers around campus. Perhaps the most interesting deployment of a Berklee card reader is at the entrance of walk-in vault cage housed in an old bank building that the college owns. In addition, entry and egress doors are equipped with door contact sensors that set off an alarm when the door is forced or held open for an extended period of time. These intrusion alarms are monitored at the Berklee Public Safety Department s control center. There are 25 panic alarms on campus and a mix of video motion and intrusion sensors. Berklee operates nearly 200 video cameras a third of

3 3 CASE STUDY : Berklee College of Music which are IP-based video surveillance cameras. The system uses 16 Lenel Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) and three Lenel Network Video Recorders (NVRs). Thirty cameras are tied back to a control center (via analog matrix) that contains the three NVRs that are fed by the 16 DVRs (with alarm inputs) across campus. We ve established a very good relationship with IT to support what we re doing to deploy campus-wide, said Costa. Without their cooperation, we wouldn t have been as successful as we have been, especially with the IP camera integration. Video Surveillance & Response At Berklee, video cameras are installed in areas of high asset value or vulnerability to theft or intrusion (i.e. tel/data, high asset storage, emergency exit doors) and areas that are not easily visible and may pose a risk to individual safety or security (e.g. practice rooms, ensembles, studios). OnGuard s ability to capture and store video using commercial-off-the-shelf cameras and recording technology helps control break-ins, thefts, assaults and loitering, as well as capture possible destruction of property for immediate response. Video signals routed, aggregated and transmitted from cameras are sent back to the Berklee public safety department s control center. The delivery of live and recorded video provides high-availability access to network video for 24/7 monitoring. Operators can choose from any number of available cameras to automatically display video in response to user-defined event triggers. On campus, it is critical for Berklee s security personnel to be able to quickly react to an alarm or event from their centralized surveillance point (the control center). Using OnGuard, the college s security force is able to acknowledge alarms, control cardholder access to specific areas, view video in real time and display an interactive map showing where the event is occurring to rapidly dispatch security personnel should the situation warrant it. Dispersed Urban Campus One of the main challenges of maintaining strict control of access to the college s many buildings is that Berklee s campus, like other colleges in urban settings, is dispersed over many city blocks. Berklee occupies 30 buildings primarily in the Back Bay-Fenway area of Boston and includes recording studios, music synthesis facilities, a new Liberal Arts building, and dormitories all designed to provide students with a secure home base in the downtown environment. Using OnGuard, the college s security force is able to acknowledge alarms, control cardholder access to specific areas, view video in real time and display an interactive map

4 4 CASE STUDY : Berklee College of Music residents. However, students aren t the only people for whom Berklee must provide a safe environment. One of the ways that Berklee is distinct from other colleges is the fact that its campus has a very large retail presence something you don t often see, even at urban schools. The college s security system not only serves its students, faculty, staff and visitors, but also a significant number of retail tenants and their customers. All the buildings that we own in Boston at the ground level, first floor, are retail establishments, said Murphy. We actually own buildings and have tenants. We re a landlord and so what that means to us is that after 5 pm if any of those tenants have a problem they call our control center. Berklee One-Card System We re up to 30 buildings and a lot of them are old so we have had some technology challenges, said Roy Murphy CPP, Berklee s Director of Public Safety, who started his career in law enforcement and spent 20 years in corporate security before joining the college administration. Because Berklee s facilities are old we run into a lot of wiring challenges here, added Costa. We re in an old bank building that is more than 100 years old and it s very difficult to get equipment in there. That s why the Lenel 2210 is very appealing to us as a solution. Lenel s LNL-2210 Intelligent Single Door Controller (ISDC) is an edge device that provides a solution for interfacing one or two readers to a single door within the OnGuard system. What makes the LNL-2210 an ideal solution for Berklee is that it is a high-performance, Ethernet- ready card reader panel that controls a single opening with 802.3af compliant Power over Ethernet (PoE). Given the wiring challenges in many of the college s older buildings, the easy installation of PoE made the LNL-2210 ISDC a very practical choice for single door control. The college's Public Safety Department provides 24-hour access control at the residence halls and other buildings, with security personnel always available to assist campus Berklee has a single card system for all its students, faculty, staff and contractors that encompasses both administration ID needs and badge access. The college ensures that only authorized individuals are granted access to certain areas, especially dormitories. Access control at Berklee is accomplished by leveraging both physical (posted officers) and electronic (badge readers and the Berklee ID card) security measures. We call it the Berklee One Card and everyone has the same badge but different pictures if you are a student, faculty, staff or contractor, said Murphy. With the exception of dormitories, most campus buildings and facilities are accessible to members of the campus community, guests, and visitors during normal hours of business, and during designated hours on weekends and holidays. Entry doors are secured after normal business hours and only accessible through the use of a card reader and authorized access badge. Unlimited access is available to all those who have an authorized Berklee ID card. When I got here almost five years ago, we had 35 badges and today we have more than 6,000 badges and almost 200 card readers, said Murphy. At first, they didn t know what a card reader was and now the faculty, in particular,

5 5 CASE STUDY : Berklee College of Music love the card readers because they can gain access to a building after hours. As a new student or faculty staff member is added to the OnGuard system, the person s Windows Active Directory account is automatically updated. A network logon account is activated at the same time that an ID badge is issued. This feature greatly improves efficiency and reduces administrative work. Berklee is migrating from HID Prox cards to an HID iclass environment with multiclass multi-technology readers. The college s one-card system is truly multi-purpose and integrates with a number of networks on and off campus. A magnetic stripe on the card is for food vending and a bar code links to the college s library. These cards can also be used as debit cards at local stores and businesses so students can make purchases without having to use cash. Future Capabilities Murphy said that over the next couple of years Berklee will create a customer service center that is a one-stop shop, a focal point for integrating all kinds of college systems including physical plant infrastructure. With the OnGuard platform, Berklee is well situated to provide the kind of seamless integration that Murphy envisions. Currently, OnGuard already integrates with the college s other campus systems such as the library and food vending. Integration with other critical systems to Berklee s operations, such as student record databases, human resources and finance systems, could be achieved with OnGuard serving as the platform for bringing it all together. Lenel s software suite also seamlessly integrates with fire alarm, intrusion detection, paging, fault tolerant and disaster recovery systems. retail stores, and classrooms all of which will have to be secured and integrated with OnGuard. When it comes to biometric technology, Berklee is going to install an Iris ID scanner in the new command center. Murphy is hoping Berklee s IT department will adopt Iris scanners in the college s data centers and other high value assets. Berklee is also considering deployment of Lenel s ILS offline and wireless locks for some of the college s dormitories and some classrooms. ILS is the security industry s first offline and wireless electromechanical locks that were built specifically for integration with OnGuard, bringing traditional online access control functionality to electromechanical locks. We certainly have the need for ILS, said Costa. We do have a number of standalone card reader systems that are obsolete now. In 2011, Berklee built a new command center for its security operations. The 200-square-foot structure will be the nerve center of the college, according to Murphy, providing the only 24/7 function at Berklee. A new dormitory with 350 dorm rooms is also being built that will include a cafeteria,

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