Full Network Setup for a former school (CCTV + Wifi + More)

Minato

Minato

Minato

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Hi gents,

Pleased to have recently completed the purchase of a former school site, not the biggest in the world but a decent sized plot with three main buildings.

OpenReach only have a copper/FTTC connection, but Virgin have fibre on the road so will be getting the fastest residential connection they have which I think is 1000/100.

What I need your help with is speccing out and planning the networking of this entire property. It's basically a completely blank slate. I definitely need to install some CCTV cameras around the buildings for security, and there needs to be at least decent wifi inside the first main building which will be in use, whilst we do refurbishment works to the rest of the buildings. I'm not bothered about external APs or APs in the other buildings for now.

Regardless of system, it needs to have remote access to the cameras e.g. via a phone app or desktop so I can monitor the school from home. Secondly, would need to be able to store the CCTV footage. We really don't want to be tied into any particular subscriptions - one off payments and that's it.

As for what else we need on the network, I'm not sure. There won't be any fixed devices there like desktops etc for now, but who knows what might happen in future - so modularity and upgradability is important.

Grateful for your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. TIA

Edit: Lots of Unifi suggestions - any specific recommendations in terms of what things from their huge catalogue would be v helpful!
 
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Unifi products get recommended a lot here for networking products. They also do security cameras. Alternatively, you could use Reolink for the cameras, which are also often recommended here and are probably cheaper (haven't checked).
 
radderfire said:
Unifi products get recommended a lot here for networking products. They also do security cameras. Alternatively, you could use Reolink for the cameras, which are also often recommended here and are probably cheaper (haven't checked).
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Yeah UniFi seems to be talked about a lot, and I could probably figure it out. It's a little intimidating though because they've got millions of different products on their website and it's hard to know what you actually need.

Since I'll be doing this on behalf of the charity that's going to be using the school, it's public money as well - so I'm really keen to get this right first time and not waste unnecessary funds on having to change things around later.
 
hooj said:
What is the new function of the site? Is it going to be offices or something else?
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Small scale classroom activity for tutoring, and a multi purpose hall for usage by local community groups (e.g. events, dinners, meetings). Will probably be a single office room for administration/filing etc. The rest of the site...TBC.
 
ChrisD. said:
+1 for UniFi, this is the sort of deployment which it is perfect for and there is zero subscription cost.
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Any specific places you'd recommend starting mate?

Head is already spinning between Cloud Gateway (Max/Ultra/Fibre), Dream Router, Unifi Express/Express 7, Dream Wall, Dream Machine. Then there's 11 different Flagship APs between U7 and U6. And all of this is without even getting into their 40 different camera models!
 
Sounds like a great use case for Unifi.

Edit - maybe Dream Machine Pro Max (two HD spaces for surveillance), one of their higher end switches, bunch of U7 range APs, G6 Bullet/Turrets with their AI goodness?
 
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Minato said:
Small scale classroom activity for tutoring, and a multi purpose hall for usage by local community groups (e.g. events, dinners, meetings). Will probably be a single office room for administration/filing etc. The rest of the site...TBC.
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Unifi sounds like a great choice then. Equipment is cheap compared to real enterprise gear (which you dont need) and provides you with the remote access for zero cost.
 
Minato said:
Any specific places you'd recommend starting mate?

Head is already spinning between Cloud Gateway (Max/Ultra/Fibre), Dream Router, Unifi Express/Express 7, Dream Wall, Dream Machine. Then there's 11 different Flagship APs between U7 and U6. And all of this is without even getting into their 40 different camera models!
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It's difficult to ignore the UGGF, it's more powerful than the rack mount solutions (except the massively expensive Fortress), although it has less RAM. Given the deployment, you likely wouldn't want a single HDD in a UDM-SE as an example, and would opt for the 4 bay NVR with sufficient storage for the number of cameras and retention requirement. Then cable up the CGF into an aggregation switch providing uplinks to PoE switches as required.
 
ChrisD. said:
It's difficult to ignore the UGGF, it's more powerful than the rack mount solutions (except the massively expensive Fortress), although it has less RAM. Given the deployment, you likely wouldn't want a single HDD in a UDM-SE as an example, and would opt for the 4 bay NVR with sufficient storage for the number of cameras and retention requirement. Then cable up the CGF into an aggregation switch providing uplinks to PoE switches as required.
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Thanks Chris. You should know I got ChatGPT to translate your post for me! :p

Ok so why Cloud Gateway Fibre over Cloud Gateway Max and Ultra? Since the virgin media residential connection will be 1000/100, is there any benefit in the multigig side of the CGF? And why this over the Dream Router 7, which seems to do all of the same things but also gives out wifi itself so saving the need for an AP? Just that the CGF can handle more cameras and so is more future proofed for expansion?
 
It's probably the best bang for buck gateway appliance on sale for what it offers; it's small, powerful, and future proof in case there's a requirement of > 1 GbE WAN in the future. You'd ideally be wanting to run the cameras off the NVR, and not a gateway as you have no HDD redundancy. If that's not a concern, or 2 drives would be enough perhaps the UDM-Pro-Max - 2x drives, Protect etc. Again, no wifi.

I'd hazard a guess that a UDR 7 wouldn't be sufficient for wifi in a large building, so you'll likely need several APs anyway, either ceiling mounted or wall mounted. If you want rack mount the UDM-Pro might be a good option but they're getting on now and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the rack mount lineup at that price point is replaced soon. Generally all in one devices with wifi are placed in positions which are bad for wifi, low down, next to a wall, or in a corner or cupboard. Hence having APs ceiling or wall mounted - it's just going to be a much better experience for clients.

There's an awful lot of cross over in the UniFi range, especially the gateway side of things which does confuse things.
 
A project of this size would benefit from some sort of commercial agreement with a consultant (I don't mean six figures to KPMG but the role they'd be performing is a consulting one) so you have some level of comeback if whatever's specced doesn't meet your requirements. At some point you're going to want to do a Wi-Fi survey which will require boots on the ground and involve costs, so you may as well prepare for that anyway.

Playing around at home with stuff that people on the internet told you to buy is one thing, having the viability of a project with books to balance riding on that network design is a different matter.

A one-man-band operation is probably enough for a mid size Unifi deployment, I wouldn't know anybody to recommend but a good start would be looking at social media for anybody in the area doing smart home tech, making videos of themselves pulling in data cable etc. and judge them on the quality of the work they present.

There are also things you need to be aware of that come with operating a CCTV system that isn't just something in your house.
 
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radderfire said:
What's your budget for the entire project?
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For the networking specifically? Aiming for less than £1.5k ideally, would be reluctant to go £2k unless really needed. Overall refurbishment about £50k.

It's all coming out of the refurbishment budget so a pound more on this is a pound less for new whiteboards and lights and paint etc
 
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+1 Unifi.

£1.5k would net you a UDM Pro SE, several G5 Turret Cameras and a 4 APs. You could probably get an 8 Port PoE switch to add more cameras and APs too for that budget.

The Pro SE has 8 PoE ports for cameras/APs so you could just start with that and extend with additional switches/devices as you go.

Do you happen to know what the cabling situation is? Is there at least CAT5 in the walls/ceilings or do you need to buy/run that too?

Sounds like a great project, good luck with it.
 
ChrisD. said:
Only two are PoE+, which I think is required for the newer APs, there's also no HDD redundancy so if the HDD dies, so does all the footage.
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True, but the other ports can be used for cameras or “Lite” APs which could still give coverage. Or at least provide an interim solution in budget.

The single HDD thing is a bit of a problem I guess, but there are mitigations. There’s a couple of scripts I’ve seen for periodically dumping footage which could then be pushed to a backup service or device.

It’s the old “cheap, convenient, reliable” - pick 2 argument. :)
 
Caged said:
A project of this size would benefit from some sort of commercial agreement with a consultant (I don't mean six figures to KPMG but the role they'd be performing is a consulting one) so you have some level of comeback if whatever's specced doesn't meet your requirements. At some point you're going to want to do a Wi-Fi survey which will require boots on the ground and involve costs, so you may as well prepare for that anyway.

Playing around at home with stuff that people on the internet told you to buy is one thing, having the viability of a project with books to balance riding on that network design is a different matter.

A one-man-band operation is probably enough for a mid size Unifi deployment, I wouldn't know anybody to recommend but a good start would be looking at social media for anybody in the area doing smart home tech, making videos of themselves pulling in data cable etc. and judge them on the quality of the work they present.

There are also things you need to be aware of that come with operating a CCTV system that isn't just something in your house.
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Yeah it's a fair point. I think the scale of what we actually need though isn't much more than a good home setup equivalent, since we're starting off small scale on site. And I'd be reluctant to pay for advice which would likely be the same as what we've already had recommended in this thread, or people less scrupulously pushing certain stacks that they get kickbacks from.

randal said:
+1 Unifi.

£1.5k would net you a UDM Pro SE, several G5 Turret Cameras and a 4 APs. You could probably get an 8 Port PoE switch to add more cameras and APs too for that budget.

The Pro SE has 8 PoE ports for cameras/APs so you could just start with that and extend with additional switches/devices as you go.

Do you happen to know what the cabling situation is? Is there at least CAT5 in the walls/ceilings or do you need to buy/run that too?

Sounds like a great project, good luck with it.
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Any cabling already there is old and in poor condition. We're going to just strip everything back to brick in some places, do a full rewire, and new plaster/paint/carpets/lights etc. It's a proper renovation of a ~120 year old structurally sound set of buildings.

So running new cat 6 or whatever around isn't a problem at all. I've just been on the phone with virgin media anyway, we'll have to run a duct ourselves to get internet access but once done we'll at least have the supply.

Wondering about the Dream Machine now vs the Cloud Gateway + PoE switch. Price of both options seems roughly equivalent, but the cloud gateway is a bit smaller and more compact so leaning towards that.
 
Also we'll need some kind of bell/intercom system thing at the gate - we have a Ring Elite (PoE) at home which works well, should we just get another one of these? I can see UniFi even have these in their lineup but they look awfully complicated and not sure how many of the features we'd actually use.
 
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