15/03/2017

Etherwan stabilises surveillance in retail

Taipei, Taiwan

Large retail warehouses can be crowded with shoppers, and this often brings with it problems of retail shrinkage and criminal activities that demand video surveillance to be in place. In order to achieve more effective retail chain management and an improved shopping experience, a robust IP surveillance system can play a main role in this, but at the same time it requires stable IP transmission to ensure that the system delivers its best performance at all times.

In order to manage a large-scale retail chain well IP transmission devices along with Power over Ethernet (PoE) are mostly recommended.

Most modern IP cameras support IEEE802.3at PoE Powered Device (PD) standard. An IEEE802.3at Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE), such as a PoE switch, outputs maximum 30W per port. The power consumption of a regular bullet camera is usually under 10W. However, a PoE camera with Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) function or infrared illumination may consume much higher power. For outdoor retailers such as garden centres, video cameras must stay operational in harsh conditions. If PoE cameras with a heater and wireless AP connection are installed outdoors, they may require hardened 60W PoE switches to provide enough power and stable transmission. To sustain those power-hungry cameras, the 60W “Ultra PoE” switch feeds up to 60W from each PoE port which utilise all four pairs of copper wires in the UTP cable.

Etherwan's EX78602 Series provides a hardened 8-port switching platform with 60W and IEEE802.3at/af Power over Ethernet (PoE) combining high performance switching with robust management features required for mission-critical and harsh environments where sustained connectivity is crucial. It is equipped with 6 10/100BASE-TX PoE (4 x PoE 30W + 2 x 60W ports), in combination with two Gigabit SX/LX/BX/ WDM fibre ports with SFP options.

The Ultra PoE ports provide up to 60W/port with a total power budget of 180W, making the switch truly versatile for connecting with PoE Powered Devices (PD) with different bandwidth and power consumption requirements such as outdoor PTZ dome cameras, wireless access points, and way-side communication devices.

As they are Din Rail mountable, the EX78602 Series is equipped with Etherwan's Alpha-Ring self-healing ring technology providing less than 15ms fault recovery time. Users are able to access management features such as port security, IGMP snooping, port-based VLAN, GARP protocols, link aggregation , via web browser, telnet, SSH, SNMP, RMON, TFTP, and RS-232 console interfaces. With the hardened specifications, the EX78602 Series is designed to operate at -40°C to 75°C in harsh environments, where high ESD, shock, and vibration may be present.

When building a modern surveillance system, the selection and setup of cameras, network video recorders (NVR), switches and routers plays an important role in building a reliable surveillance system. IP (Internet Protocol) networks are being used and deployed to connect the elements of security and surveillance and access control systems. Etherwan supplies a full line of Ethernet connectivity products designed to provide network services for security and access control systems when connectivity is crucial to perform the best.