Holiday Inn Frankfurt Airport: Discreet Security
At the Holiday Inn Frankfurt Airport, eneo IP cameras, combined with a centralised storage solution and a control station from Synology, ensure the security of their guests – reliably and unobtrusively
Primestar Hospitality operates brand hotels in the metropolitan regions of Germany and Austria. The portfolio ranges from 2-star hotels up to 4-star properties at the higher end of the market. The declared objective of the hotel operator is to become the largest franchise holder for brands from the Hilton and InterContinental Hotels Group. At the Alexanderplatz in Berlin the company runs the world's largest Hampton by Hilton hotel, which was opened in May this year. In December 2016, Primestar Hospitality opened the Holiday Inn Frankfurt Airport in the Gateway Gardens district, a short distance from Frankfurt Airport. In this, as well as in the other properties of the hotel operator, Digicom informationstechnologie GmbH is responsible for the planning and technical implementation of the video security concept. Tamer Vural, the managing director of the Göppingen company, sums up its capabilities, ranging from digital signage and security technology to centralised media control and the Internet via satellite: “My job is about project business”. The development of personalised solutions, implemented in tailor-made systems, is therefore the core business of Digicom informationstechnologie GmbH. eneo has the products required for this and also provides the technical support necessary so that projects can be completed quickly and to the full satisfaction of the customer.
Security in accordance with the space concept
The airport, the connection to the Frankfurter Kreuz and the railway station make the Holiday Inn Frankfurt Airport the ideal destination, and not just for business guests. Already, half a year after opening, the property usually has an occupancy rate of up to 80 percent.
With good, fresh dishes at fair prices the gastronomy in the hotel can be found in the special "Island location" in Gateway Gardens. Also noteworthy are the furnishings and interior design, mainly due to the open lobby concept in which the reception area, restaurant and bar are combined in an open, complete ensemble which appears to welcome the guests with open arms.
At the same time the strict separation of leisure and working activities has disappeared from this spatial concept: business guests and tourists alike use the power outlets at the seats and the USB chargers on the high-level tables in the dining area for their laptops and mobile devices. Warm colours and a tasteful decor create a pleasant atmosphere in which you can chat at leisure as well as concentrate upon your work.
Even in an aesthetically sophisticated environment such as this video surveillance must, as a matter of course, bereliable. But to make the guests feel really comfortable, the technology must not only be reliable, but discreet. Like the eneo type fix domes.
The extremely flat IP cameras are subtly integrated into the overall interior architectural concept. You have to look closely and know what you are looking for if you want to discover the nine small cameras inside – and even then they are difficult to distinguish from a smoke detector or a spotlight embedded in the ceiling. Tamer Vural almost goes into raptures about this: “The design of the camera is ideal for this type of project: it is small, the video quality is very good, it can be installed in no time at all, and the price-performance ratio is excellent. I really like this model very much”. The hotel manager, Nikolas von Olberg, is also very satisfied with the eneo fix domes: “If you look around here, the issue of surveillance doesn’t actually arise at all. And that's a very good sign”.
Because, unlike in the retail sector, video security in the hotel and catering sector is less about prevention and more about situational awareness and information.
After all, it should be clear to every criminal that in hotels they are being watched.
Callisto in the outside area and the underground garage
Also the much larger domes from the eneo Callisto series, which have been installed on wall brackets and monitor the entrance and the outside area, operate discreetly in the background in a visual interaction with the structure of the façade, and can be easily overlooked. Like the network domes installed in the open lobby, the Callisto IP domes provide video streams in full HD quality.
Onboard the cameras which are equipped with an autofocus zoom lens (triple optical, sixteen times digital) can be found video analysis functions such as motion detection, manipulation protection, virtual trip wire (with counter and direction recognition), area monitoring and defogging.
Integrated Smart IR technology ensures that the lighting intensity of both of the high-power IR LEDs automatically adjusts to the ambient light conditions. IP domes are also used in the underground car park.
Here have been installed cameras with wedge adapters, which form part of the modular connection concept of the Callisto series.
Tamer Vural underlines the advantage offered by this flexible connection concept: “This is elementary, no question about it. This was most apparent during the recently completed installation at the Hampton by Hilton on the Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Here the installation would not have been possible without the Callisto connection concept. Somehow the cables must eventually be fed into the ceiling - if this is made of concrete, it becomes a major challenge. Without the Callisto connection box we would have had to change over to significantly larger cameras, which would have driven up the costs. So we were able to stay within our budget”.
Harmonious interaction with the solution from Synology
For the recording and management of the cameras, Digicom GmbH relied upon products from Synology. The Synology RS815 involves a high-performance, rack-mountable 4-bay 1U NAS powered by an Intel quad-core processor. Accordingly the quality of the streams, even with the compressed screen stream, is very good. For all the devices on the network authorised users also have the option of remote access, for example to view the video material or to make firmware updates.
The memory supports AES NI acceleration for fast encryption performance and is designed for high service tasks. With four built-in Gigabit LAN ports and scalability of up to 8 drives, the Synology RS815 is the ideal central storage solution for video security applications for systems of the size of those installed in the Holiday Inn.
It is supplemented by the extremely robust and compact monitoring system, VisualStation VS360HD, which provides control centre functions such as live viewing by up to 36 IP cameras, as well as various administrative tools. The VisualStation is the ideal solution in a limited space, as is also the case in the back office of the Holiday Innwhere all the video sources are displayed on a control station. Furthermore, the device with its power requirement of 6 watts makes clearly fewer demands upon resources than a conventional PC.
Accordingly the quality of the streams, even with the compressed screen stream, is very good. For all the devices on the network authorised users also have the option of remote access, for example to view the video material or to make firmware updates. According to Tamer Vural the entire installation with the Synology equipment ran smoothly. “It is one of the advantages of the system”, adds Marcus Reinsch, the IT manager of the Primestar Hospitality Group, “that the equipment is child's play to configure and that in principle you do not have to do anything. It is also just as simple to use, and that means intuitively. In addition recordings which are requested, for example, by the police for possible investigations, are issued in a format which can be viewed by the authorities without having to install a separate player – by no means a matter of course".
Also, the interplay of IP video cameras and recording systems does not always have to be harmonious. But the eneo cameras and the solution from Synology fit perfectly together and have been working together smoothly since the first day.
The next project of Primestar Hospitality at Frankfurt Airport is a Hampton by Hilton, located directly adjacent to the Holiday Inn in Gateway Gardens. The construction work on the neighbouring site has already begun. Once again, Digicom Informationstechnologie GmbH will plan and implement the security system. And without any doubt here, too, eneo network cameras will discreetly provide security.
