MIAMI--During a major $6.2-billion construction project at the Miami International Airport, which began in 2001, the security department has had to adjust its program to dramatic changes in the airport's physical environment.

Ray Davalos, acting building management system support manager for Miami International Airport, said changes to airport security were initially spurred following a government sting operation in 1998 called Operation Ramp Rat, which identified security vulnerabilities across the facility. Following the report, "our politicians gave us the directive and funding to go ahead and install a state-of-the-art security system," he said. "We were already in the construction and installation phase in 2001, before 9/11, so we had a headstart before other airports had requirements to add all this security."

However, being ahead of the game has its drawbacks, too. When the airport originally began the upgrade, it installed two separate networks, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode network protocol that collects and transports video and an Ethernet network to disseminate the video, said Moti Shabtai, executive vice president of strategic relationships for Nice Systems. "I'm not sure they would make that choice today, but with technology at the time, two networks was the best decision," Shabtai said.

Having two separate networks meant that operators who received an alarm on one network could not view the video footage from the other network, which was monitored by a separate operator in a separate location, said Davalos. However, MIA recently integrated these two networks together using its NiceVision suite including Nice Harmony, Nice Pro and Nice Alto to bring together its cameras and access control systems.

"Now, this is all consolidated into one security work station location and an operator gets all the information instantaneously as soon as the alarm happens," said Davalos. For example, when an alarm occurs on a door, the operator receives the location, live video as well as pre- and post-video footage in addition to the bi-directional audio associated with that event. The system also automatically records, tags and stores the incidents.

Now, the system has the capability of integrating 2,600 cameras and 500 access control sensors, he said, a far cry from the 400 cameras the system previously supported. Davalos said the department has been progressively populating the system and has reached the halfway point, installing about 1,200 cameras so far. 

And while security was always highly involved in the design process of the construction project at the airport, installing the technology has been a major challenge, Davalos said. "I think that IT -- because basically this is an IT system -- should never co-mingle with construction," he said. "Construction is too brick and mortar, too convoluted ... to expect them to understand these systems is unrealistic." Davalos said that if he had to do it again, he would prefer the systems vendor to have more direct control over the installation of the system, instead of it being facilitated by the general contractor. Shabtai from Nice said that while they don't sell directly to the end user, "we always maintain in direct touch with the end user to provide subject matter expertise."