With crime progressively taking its toll on the South African SME sector, business owners are starting to consider more sophisticated and intelligent ways of safeguarding their assets and stock items.
“The perfect example of this in practice shines through in the enthusiasm with which the launch of Cisco's range of Power of Ethernet (POE) and wireless video cameras has been met,” says Marius Vermeulen, Cisco technical specialist at Tarsus Technologies.
Vermeulen says customers are looking for devices that are simple to install and easy to set up and integrate with their existing infrastructure - and that's exactly what Cisco has to offer with this new range.
“The first device in the range is the PVC2300 Internet video camera, which gives users the convenience of using a single POE-enabled cable for both communication and power, substantially easing installation on ceilings, rooftops or other areas where access to a power outlet is an issue,” Vermeulen explains.
The simplicity of installation doesn't mean this camera is limited in its functionality, however.
“Cisco's use of removable CS-mount lenses means the camera can be customised with optional zoom, wide-angle, vari-focal, auto-iris, or other options,” he says.
“The PVC2300 also has two input and two output ports, which can be used to connect the camera to an alarm panel, siren, passive infrared (PIR) sensor, smoke detector, lighting switch (on/off), door sensor and more.
“All of these features make the PVC2300 well-suited to a wide variety of applications,” he adds.
Vermeulen says Cisco also has a wealth of wireless solutions on offer.
Wireless solutions start with the WVC2300, which is identical in functionality to the PVC2300, however, instead of using POE, it operates over 802.11G wireless networks and requires access to a conventional power outlet.
Extending this functionality even further, the two other wireless models in the line-up, namely the WVC200 and WVC, have a number of additional features to offer.
“Like its counterparts, the WVC200 can send live video through the Internet to a Web browser, regardless of where the user might be located.
“The advanced MPEG-4 video compression used by these units produces a high-quality, high-frame-rate (up to 640 x 480) video stream, which facilitates good video quality in varying-bandwidth environments. The cameras can also take scheduled snapshots of the images (in JPEG format) and save them to an FTP server for reference purposes.”
When viewing footage live, Vermeulen says users can control the camera's orientation and zoom level remotely.
“The pan, tilt, and digital zoom functions allow users to remotely control the cameras' movement and focus, giving maximum remote flexibility. Software is also included for monitoring multiple cameras and recording to the user's hard drive, with advanced search by time and date.
“The real clincher is the unattended operation,” he says.
“Recording can be set up to start when motion is detected, making for a valuable way of catching wrongdoers and providing proof-of-loss for insurance purposes.
“Users can also enable security mode, which allows the camera to send a message with a short attached video to up to three e-mail addresses whenever it detects motion in its field of view. Recipients can then react as they see fit.”
The only difference between the WVC200 and the WVC210 is audio. “Where the 200 supports one-way audio, the 210 supports two-way audio,” he says.
With this range of features, Vermeulen believes the camera line-up provided by Cisco caters for all needs and makes good sense, as it dovetails perfectly into an existing Cisco network.
“There is minimal additional cost besides the cameras themselves,” he says, “and for the peace-of-mind provided, I believe it's a no-brainer.”
“We're confident that this new avenue of solutions will be successful for both Tarsus and our resellers,” he concludes.
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Tarsus Technologies
With more than 20 years of experience in the ICT industry, Tarsus is the leading value-added distributor in South Africa, specialising in the supply of the world's foremost PC and peripheral hardware brands to the local reseller channel.
Tarsus strives to meet the channel's needs for credit funding, stock availability and efficient logistics, ensuring that resellers are able to deliver the highest quality service to their customers, focus on support and compiling the best overall solutions for their end-user customer base at the lowest possible cost.
The company prides itself on its flexibility, adaptability, knowledge, skills and successful track record combined with an industry-leading ability to manage large rollouts. These are the reasons Tarsus has consistently been rated as the top distributor in the country by international vendors, resellers and the IT media alike.
With its strong commitment to the South African channel, Tarsus is able to not only make the reseller channel more efficient, but more importantly, it plays a vital role in dramatically reducing the costs of doing business in the local ICT market.
Brands represented by the Tarsus stable include industry leaders like Acer, APC Cisco, HP, IBM, Lenovo, OKI, Samsung, Targus and Wyse Technology.
More information about Tarsus is available at: http://www.tarsus.co.za.
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