Oak Park, Stamford CT: 305-Camera Multi-Building Surveillance Backbone

The work

Sage Solutions is the network design and switch-programming partner on Oak Park, engaged by the project’s prime contractor. The Phase 2-3 scope adds approximately 230 IP cameras across 20 new townhome buildings and integrates them with the existing 75-camera Phase 1 system on a unified 10G fiber backbone.

Core architecture. A Ubiquiti USW-Pro-Aggregation L3 platform at the main MDF — three units (two active in a 25G SFP28 DAC pair, one shelf spare) — replaces the original Phase 1 core. Each Aggregation unit provides 28× 10G SFP+ ports and 8× SFP28 inter-switch/uplink ports under unified UniFi management. The 50 Gbps inter-switch DAC backbone gives the core 100 Gbps of aggregate switching headroom for future access-control, intercom, and Wi-Fi expansion without infrastructure modification.

Edge switching per building. Every new Phase 2-3 townhome building gets an outdoor NEMA 4 enclosure housing one or two EtherWAN EX78934X-0VB hardened PoE edge switches. The hardened EtherWAN platform tolerates exterior temperature and humidity that office-grade switching does not, eliminating the need for additional climate-controlled IDF space at each building.

Phase 1 preservation. The existing Phase 1 plant remains on its original multimode fiber. Eight SR ports on the new aggregation core uplink to the Phase 1 switches at 10G, so the existing 75-camera installation gains the new core’s management plane and routing fabric without any reconfiguration of the cameras themselves. Phase 1 multimode is preserved indefinitely; new builds run OS2 single-mode for 25G/40G/100G future-proofing.

Distributed NVR architecture. The combined ~305-camera load exceeds the per-server stream limit of a single Exacq NVR, so the design splits the load across two NVR servers connected via 10GBASE-SR fiber. Operators still see one console; the distribution is transparent at the management layer.

Fiber-plant specification. OS2 single-mode (ITU-T G.652.D, low-water-peak) on all new outside-plant and building-entrance runs. Six strands per cable minimum, two cables per conduit (active plus a fully unterminated physical spare), twelve strands total per building — sufficient to absorb future Phase 3-and-beyond expansion onto Lot RM-7 without trenching new conduit. Fiber acceptance testing is part of Sage’s scope; the fiber-contractor’s strand count and termination quality are verified before any switch programming begins.

Why this matters at campus scale

Multi-building campus surveillance is its own discipline. What works for a 16-camera office breaks at 160 cameras across 28 buildings. The architectural decisions — inter-building fiber pathways, distributed versus centralized NVR storage, edge versus aggregation switching, scalable IP planning, physical security for the network plant in every building — are not the questions you answer for a single site, and many are irreversible once installed.

Public-housing and multi-dwelling property operators face an additional constraint: the network does not just carry cameras. It carries property management workflows, future tenant-facing services, building-management systems, and increasingly the integrated access control and intrusion alarm that a property of this scale demands. Designing for the full long-term stack — not just the cameras being installed today — separates a 10-year asset from a 3-year replacement.

What Sage owns versus what the prime contractor owns

This project demonstrates the value of clean scope boundaries on multi-discipline campus work. Sage owns network design and engineering, switch programming and configuration, fiber acceptance testing, NVR network integration, VLAN/IP architecture, Phase 1 integration and cutover, network commissioning and stress test, and PE-stamped as-built drawings. The prime contractor owns project management, camera-platform supply and installation, Cat6 horizontal cabling at the building level, and VMS/NVR procurement. The general contractor owns underground conduit, NEMA enclosure mounting, and the civil work. Clear lines mean fewer “not my job” handoff failures during commissioning.

What we apply on every multi-building engagement

• Preserve what’s working. Phase 1’s multimode plant is integrated, not replaced. Forklift upgrades destroy budget and create unnecessary risk.
• Edge switching tolerates the environment it lives in. Hardened EtherWAN platforms outdoors mean no climate-controlled IDF closets at every building.
• Design the fiber plant for the next 15 years of buildings. Twelve strands per building today absorbs Phase 4 and 5 without trenching.
• Distributed NVR architecture for distributed risk. Splitting 305 streams across two NVRs keeps single-server failures from blacking out half the campus.
• Document everything. PE-stamped as-built drawings, network topology, rack elevations, fiber test reports, switch configuration backups — all delivered as part of the engagement, all owned by the property after handover.