Data center perimeter protection

As data centers host very sensitive business data, they need to be particularly secured. Today's data centers are often large buildings, with building walls or fences serving as the outermost perimeter. The site is accessed by vehicles as well as employees, visitors, maintenance staff and suppliers. Once given clearance, they will enter the site via the parking area, or the building itself; resulting in a complex site full of activity.

Traditional approaches in securing a data center perimeter often result in large expensive 'video walls' of monitors showing live analogue video feeds, hoping an operator will be able to spot an incident. Faced with multiple screens and dozens of video sources, even the most experienced human observer will quickly lose effectiveness from fatigue and stress.

Intelligence through analytics

Siemens sophisticated digital video solutions are a better way to monitor data centers – intelligently displaying all surveillance inputs on a single screen.

The Siemens wide-area surveillance solution filters camera input against data from multiple sensors including GPS, access control and object tracking. The results are displayed on a digital map of your entire data center site, with all activity detected and classified in real time.

System identification and alarming

If an object violates the rules within a certain zone, an alarm can be triggered and the cameras in this area will automatically be displayed to the operator.

The system evaluates and monitors all sensors and camera signals, using just one large screen to display only the live images in case of an alarm or suspicious event. The operator can then investigate further to validate the event using the camera's pan, tilt and zoom controls, or playback the image to see what caused the alarm. This allows security personnel to focus on potential threats and stops attempted security breaches before they occur.