Year: 2017

Since 2008, Transportation Impact, a privately held 5-time Inc. 5000 company, has been providing maximum supply chain cost reduction for clients in multiple vertical markets. The company which is based in Emerald Isle, NC has made a huge impact on the bottom line for clients by reducing shipping costs through small package and freight negotiation along with their state-of-the-art transportation management system. The challenge With 70 employees working out of two office buildings in Emerald Isle, NC; they needed an access control solution to safeguard employees and their infrastructure. The company’s corporate headquarters reside in a building that consists of 4 floors with two floors containing executive offices and conference rooms and the top two floors housing a restaurant and bar which is open to the public. The biggest challenge Transportation Impact found with a shared building is the common occurrence for the public to walk in on private meetings taking place in the conference rooms and inquire about the location of the restaurant. Having the public enter Transportation Impact’s office at will was not only a disruption, but a security risk for employees and private company information and systems. It was imperative that the conference room and executive areas were safeguarded from unauthorized access. The solution Transportation Impact needed a special delivery, the right access control solution from their trusted security integrator, Electronic Solutions. Electronic Solutions has been working with Transportation Impact over the last few years and understood their need for a simple and convenient access control solution. Ron Snyder, President at Electronic Solutions and an ISONAS certified partner, delivered the ISONAS Pure IP™ access control solution in the fall of 2016 starting with a pilot program for ISONAS’s new RC-04 reader-controller, all managed from the ISONAS software, Pure Access cloud. “ISONAS is a great team to work with as they are 07/17 all about supporting their certified dealers and offering top notch customer service to help make the implementation process seamless,” states Ron Snyder, President at Electronic Solutions, “The ISONAS solution is a great product and so much easier than the past access control systems that required running several cables to install it. ISONAS offers a simple solution, which only requires an ISONAS reader-controller and a CAT 5 cable for power and data; making it an easy deployment for customers.” ISONAS makes a special mobile delivery One key challenge that drove Transportation Impact and Electronic Solutions of Greenville to choose ISONAS was the need for convenient access for their users. Upon the initial installation, Transportation Impact utilized key fobs to provide access to their users. Unfortunately, a number of the key fobs were lost which resulted in employees propping open doors; circumventing the security and effectiveness of the access control solution. With the number of lost key fobs, Transportation Impact needed to find a way to incorporate access control into their employees’ normal, everyday practices. The ISONAS Pure Mobile credential allowed them to take the convenience of their mobile phone to the next level. The Bluetooth® Low Energy feature of the Pure IP™ hardware family (RC-04) eliminated the need for a physical card or key fob and allowed a mobile device to act as an access card. With the simplicity of Pure Mobile in combination with Pure Access, there was no need to install additional software, purchase additional licenses to enroll mobile credentials, or acquire a massive bank of credentials. The RC-04 hardware and Pure Access software are ready to use with the ISONAS Pure Mobile credentials right out of the box. An employee at Transportation Impact can simply download the Pure Mobile application to their phone, present it to a reader-controller, and the facility administrator associates that mobile phone to the user’s profile. “We were looking for an easy-to-use access control solution that allowed access with the touch of a button and we found it,” says Norm Pollock, VP of Information Technology at Transportation Impact, “In addition to having mobile access, we really liked having the ability to automate on a schedule and set the doors to lock and unlock during certain times of the day all from the Pure Access Cloud software.” The cloud delivers security and flexibility With a successful pilot program under their belt, Transportation Impact currently has 11 ISONAS RC-04 reader-controllers installed across two office buildings all administered from the Pure Access Cloud software, giving them access from anywhere at any time. Pure Access cloud eliminated the need for any additional onsite network infrastructure and provided full administrative and management power of their access control system from any device.

Connecticut-based Groton Utilities is using Quantum DXi® disk-based de-duplication and Scalar® tape in combination with Veeam backup and replication software to consolidate multi-site backup and disaster recovery (DR), protecting its critical data against malware and loss and reducing overall costs. Groton’s implementation demonstrates a commitment to 3-2-1 data protection best practices: three copies of data, using two different media types, with one copy offline and off-site. Effective protection for VMs Groton Utilities provides water, power and other services for a wide area of southeastern Connecticut, including the City of Groton. Over the years, the IT team’s approach to backup and DR protection has evolved. For example, when servers were all physical, backups were written to a tape library. As servers became 95 percent virtualized, disk then became part of the strategy. To protect virtual machines (VMs) more effectively, the team chose software from Veeam, and it added Quantum DXi de-duplication appliances to handle data growth, in part because the company had such a positive experience with Quantum’s tape library and service support team. The DXi appliance not only provides fast backup and restore to keep data readily available but also delivers high de-duplication rates that enable Groton to retain backup data for a full 30 days. “We saw the value of a 3-2-1 approach to data protection,” said Tom O’Farrell, Groton Utilities System Administrator, “But we hadn’t found an effective and cost-efficient way to implement it until we deployed the Quantum-Veeam solution.” Tape protects against ransomware Writing data to tape provides ‘air gap’ protection against data loss and malware, including ransomware. The IT team created a configuration using the two different data centers and disk-to-disk replication. Veeam backs up the VMs to the DXi appliance, and the team’s legacy backup application creates tapes. “We have seen the damage and costs that recent ransomware attacks have created, and we know the best protection is having a kind of ‘air gap’ – keeping a copy of critical data on tape that is isolated from the vulnerable spinning disk,” said O’Farrell. Reducing backup complexity The Groton Utilities team plans to simplify the backup system further by adding another DXi at its second data center to back up both VMs and CIFS shares to the DXi appliances using Veeam, and then replicating backup data between data centers using the DXi appliances. The new system will leverage integration of the DXi systems with the Veeam Data Mover to increase performance and support features such as synthetic full backup and instant VM recovery directly on a DXi appliance. Veeam will also back up the physical servers and create tapes. “The power of the Quantum and Veeam technology is enabling us to simplify. The DXi appliances are getting excellent de-dupe rates and providing highly effective replication,” said O’Farrell, “Veeam can now do backups for both VMs and physical servers, and it can write data both to CIFS shares and to tape libraries. Our experience over the last year is that the Quantum and Veeam elements of the combined solution work very well together.”

Denver in Colorado & Pasco in Washington Expanded Pasco in Washington and Denver in Colorado have expanded their Opticom™ traffic preemption solution from Global Traffic Technologies, LLC (GTT). The cities benefit from their faster response times, and safer journeys for emergency services vehicles with the expansion of the solution that works alongside intersection controllers to help ensure emergency vehicles can move through intersections quickly and safely. When an emergency vehicle needs to navigate an intersection, the Opticom emergency vehicle preemption (EVP) system onboard the vehicle sends a request to the intersection’s controller ahead of its arrival. If the request is granted, the light turns green and the vehicle gets a clear path through the intersection. In Denver, 60 of the city’s busiest intersections have been included as part of an expansion and upgrade to the existing EVP system, ensuring emergency vehicles and personnel proceed to incidents swiftly and safely. Pasco has expanded the existing EVP system to include eight more of its busiest intersections. This will allow emergency vehicles to respond to incidents even faster, and to avoid the danger of navigating an intersection against the flow of traffic. GTT’s President Jason Lund said, “GTT is delighted to continue our relationship with the cities of Pasco and Denver, and their emergency services. The further expansion and modernization of EVP system will help them improve operational safety for residents and emergency services, as well as to decrease response times for emergency vehicles.”

14 HD cameras deployed in sensitive areas The Italian town of Schio has bolstered its video surveillance system with 14 new digital cameras that will cover as big an area as possible. There has been 75,000 Euro worth of investment, in an effort to protect those who want to feel safer at home. Thanks to a pilot project that saw a collaboration between the local council, Videotec, Pasubio Tecnologia (a company that offers public administration digital services) and the local police force, not only will the field of surveillance be widened but it is the best technology available that has been installed and tested. Supplied by Videotec, these new devices don’t just provide daytime surveillance, they also allow for monitoring at night, thanks to the in-built infrared. They also come with Full HD sensors, 30x zoom and a wiper for cleaning the lens. In addition, they rotate, allowing for full 360° recording. The pilot project also allowed Videotec to use the spaces made available to the town to test new devices, and experiment with new video surveillance solutions designed specifically for cities. The Mayor of Schio said, “We came to notice that the town’s surveillance system was inadequate; some areas were not covered and many cameras were not modern enough to provide pictures to use. We tackled this problem immediately because the security of our citizens, our businesses and their capital is of the utmost importance. Through this project, we’ll replace two obsolete systems and add 12 cameras, giving us 45 in total with which to monitor the town. In particular, the system will be upgraded through the industrial region and other sensitive areas, chiefly to prevent acts of vandalism. Laura Locci, President of Pasubio Tecnologia said, “Video surveillance is important, but it’s only effective if the system works properly. Thanks to our fibre optic infrastructure, the digital technology of the new devices, connected to the monitoring station that has been installed at the HQ of the local police force, offers the very best performance for the whole system.” Loris Revrenna, Deputy Commander of the local police force continued, “The knowledge that there are recording systems in place is already proving to be an excellent deterrent. Increasingly, video surveillance is a tool for investigation as it allows the perpetrators of crimes to be tracked. Previously, they probably would have gone unpunished. It, therefore, allows us to take preventative and repressive action as an increasingly indispensable solution.” Alessio Grotto, President of Videotec, concluded, “For us, collaborating with the municipality of Schio is a moment of pride. We are a company of Schio, with activities in fifty countries around the world, and we specialise in the creation of outdoor video surveillance systems that are resistant to extreme conditions, both weather-related and environmental. At sites made available by the town, we will be able to experiment with new products and invest in a product that’s dedicated exclusively to city surveillance.”