Western Kentucky University Deploys Milestone VMS

Milestone Systems IP VMS ís proving the advantages of the open platform approach for Western Kentucky University’s diverse surveillance needs with the ability to expand and customize the system for growing requirements over the years.

Spread across 200 acres with dozens of buildings and thousands of students, Western Kentucky University is like a small city. The university has numerous departments, each with a unique set of requirements for a video surveillance solution. Meanwhile, a single small team in the IT division must be able to plan, deploy and manage all these different surveillance situations.

The solution for the IT division at Western Kentucky University was to implement Milestone’s open platform IP video management software, XProtect Enterprise, and later to upgrade to XProtect Corporate. Over time, they have deployed more cameras as needed and now have roughly 300 network video cameras around the campus. The team uses various XProtect add-ons for additional advanced features, such as XProtect Smart Wall, and leverages Microsoft Active Directory for managing permissions of users in various departments.  

Milestone’s flexible XProtect VMS has also allowed the university’s network team to deploy custom solutions for different departments throughout the university. Thanks to the Milestone open platform, they have been able to tweak their system, install add-ons and create specialized integrations with the Milestone Integration Platform Software Development Kit (MIP SDK) to support different scenarios, such as pulling up the video from emergency call phone locations around campus. 

The XProtect management application allows them to perform most management tasks from a central location, making it possible for a small team with limited resources to maintain such a large deployment with ease. 

"Milestone XProtect Corporate software is very stable and reliable, allowing us to focus on the design and field work. We can expand the solution and support our clients without worrying about having to babysit the software," said Jeppie Sumpter, lead network engineer at Western Kentucky University.

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