Security / Access Control – Amito Site, UK – EMEA

Headquartered in the South East of England, Amito Data Centres provide the highest levels of security and resilience to their clients offering a high level of 2N protection for customers to host their mission critical servers and data. The Reading data centre is a 60,000 square foot facility located in the heart of the Thames Valley, near to the Green Park technology area.

The Challenge

In addition to holding Information Security Management standard ISO 27001, the Tier 3+ Reading site is a high security, 1000 Rack Data Centre with an impressive array of backup power options to ensure there is no interruption of service to their clients. 

Site security is as important as cyber security to a large data centre and Amito use HD CCTV with extended recording retention, the latest in iris recognition access control and detailed visitor processing along with on-site staff 24 hours per day.    Monitoring vehicles entering and leaving the site was a necessary extension to the security systems but any such system must operate 24/7 and be totally reliable.

The Solution

To complete the security protection for the site a Vaxtor HD ANPR System was installed to integrate with new bi-fold electronic gates. The system comprises an ANPR Processor running the Vaxtor recognition engine and application software. The ANPR Processor is located in a central admin office to make it easy to update the authorised database especially with temporary visitor permits via Vaxtor’s Security and Access Control Application. The ANPR system’s I/O controller is linked to the new Bi-fold gates.

The software opens the gates for all authorised users and visitors as well as recording full event data and images for all traffic including any vehicles such as delivery trucks allowed access manually. All vehicles entering and exiting the site are logged as searchable event records with mono and colour images integrated to an SQL database.

Multiple user groups can be created to ensure that only authorised vehicles are granted access on to site within specific time ranges. Permanent access can be granted to staff members whereas temporary ‘virtual permits’ can be issued for contractors or day visitors.

The Result

The resulting system works well and is simple and easy to use.  It allows the Security team to search the SQL-based event logfile by full or partial plate and time and date range providing a list of results with event details and associated images.  A ‘hot list’ with alerts can be used to highlight any vehicle plate whether known or unknown approaching the site notifying the Security team in real time – or even via email to multiple staff members enabling them to deal with situations promptly. In addition, even unknown vehicles passing on the perimeter road can create an alert if seen above a pre-defined frequency.