Supported by the technical expertise of firms like Ceitronics, Corporate America is taking security out of the back office and putting it squarely in the high tech arena!

Whether it's for protection of employees, protection of information and intellectual property, or protection of hardware and facilities, corporate security systems have gone high profile. Ceitronics is on the forefront of this developmentãdesigning and installing sophisticated enterprise-class systems for office campuses, high-rise buildings, colocation facilities, managed care facilities, and other business applications.

Security has become a market in its own right," said Sid Chernoff, a security systems Project Manager for Ceitronics. "Networking is now the name of the game. There have always been a lot of individual security componentsãcameras, an alarm system that can call the police or fire department, intercoms, access-controlled doors, etc. The newest software and hardware have been designed to take all these components and put them under one umbrella. It's called total integration or an enterprise-class system." This kind of system on this kind of scale has only become available very, very recently. Everything is managed 24/7 through one workstation, linked to a server in the building. (For more on how an enterprise level corporate security system is networked, see center spread illustration, pg. 4-5.)

A case in point is a $400,000 enterprise-class security system that Ceitronics recently completed in San Francisco for one of the Big Five auditing firms. The system is spread out over seven floors of a 26-story high rise. Using a sophisticated networking and card-access design, the system monitors the movement of every employee and every visitor 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The system in the San Francisco high-rise is linked by fiber optics that run throughout the various floors into a master communications room. A server located in the dedicated communications room is integrated into a central control panel, which supplies information to a database that is monitored in person 24 hours a day.

Security in a high-rise building is particularly demanding because the main entrance on the ground level is usually open to the public. In the case of this high-rise, anyone who enters the lobby can walk into one of the six elevators on the ground floor. If a visitor exits an elevator at one of the auditing firm's seven floors, card-access-controlled doors and surveillance cameras are in place to prevent unauthorized entry into the premises. Even the doors to the stairways are protected by card readers. Only those employees and visitors who have been authorized to enter the offices have valid cards that can open or close elec-tronically-controlled locks.

Card access control systems work through sophisticated communications technology. Inside the card are an embedded antenna and electronic information. When a card is waved past a card reader next to a door, a signal is sent to the central control panel. The control panel searches a database to determine if the cardholder is authorized to enter that particular door. If the card is authorized, the control panel sends a signal to
unlock the door so the person holding the card can pass through.

If someone who doesn't work for the firm rides the elevator up from the lobby and steps off at the fifth floor, he can't go anywhere but back inside the elevator, since the doors in the hallway won't open without a security card," Chernoff said. "All of his actions are taped on video. Employees of the firm, however, just pass their card by the reader and walk right in."

Authorization for door access is controlled by the security administrator, who enrolls new employees into the system, assigns each new employee appropriate access, and administers termination of employees on the database.

If an employee attempts to gain access to an unauthorized area, access will be denied," Chernoff said. "Usage information is stored on the server, so if an employee tries to use the card improperly, the security administrator will know." The security administrator can also decide the times of day when access is granted. If a lab is only open from 8 pm to 5 pm, the door won't unlock at 7:45 am, even if authorized personnel swipe their cards past the reader.

The system is interconnected through the communications rooms on each floor (also called intermediary distribution frames), which contain logic boards and power supplies to activate the cameras or open and close the doors. The access-controlled doors, cameras, and panic/duress alarms on each floor are wired into these localized communications rooms.

Cables from the fiber optic network drop through cores drilled in the floors of the rooms to connect with the master communications room on the second floor. "The master communications room is the convergence point of the security equipment for the entire site," said Scott Fike, Assistant Project Manager for Ceitronics. "Extra precautions are taken with this roomãit's environmentally controlled, it has a raised floor, is water- and temperature-monitored, and it's backed up by batteries for unexpected power supply surges or failures."

Most firms today are demanding a range of corporate security services, including safety for clients and employees, and protection against kidnapping, assault and theft. Since many employees now work outside of normal business hours, buildings are often open 24/7. Employees and intellectual property need to be kept safe around the clock, regardless of the time or day of the week that employees need to access the workplace. Ceitronics supplies the methodology to provide these businesses with a total security integration solution, for a safe and secure workplace.

Illustrations
1. Ceitronics Presents A World Class Solution To Security Systems Integration
2. Path Of Access To A Building: How The System Admits And Protects Employees

Other Features
1. Newly awarded Ceitronics Projects
2. Security Systems Use Leading Edge Technology For Total Integration Ceitronics Is On The Forefront Of Corporate Security Designt
3. New "Biometric" Security Technologies Are Providing Access With The Lift Of A Finger Or The Blink Of An Eye!