July 27, 2011
Planning for AV project management
The term “convergence” as it applies to AV and
IT is by no means a new one. However, this doesn’t
mean that during AV integration projects Information
Technology specialists and their audiovisual counterparts
always see eye-to-eye. In many cases, these undertakings
feature unfamiliar territory for both camps, necessitating
two elements that are arguably crucial in any venture:
communication and planning.
“As it stands with any project—be it in the IT space, server deployment, building
a bridge or implementing something to do with AV—planning is, by far, the most
important task,” says John Lamberson, technical director at Crestron Electronics, Inc.
For example, an integration may call for the distribution of audio and video data over
the network, while at the same time requiring control data that updates managers on
aspects such as lamp life for the projectors deployed throughout the facility. “Those
are two very different things, and it’s important that the AV integration company, as
well as the IT managers, get on the same page with reference to what’s going on and
what requirements both parties have to be successful.”
Get a Head Start
Jennifer H. Willard, supervising AV systems technical analyst in the Education
Division of San Francisco’s Judicial Council of
California-Administrative Office of the Courts, notes
that one of the principal challenges that IT managers
have historically faced is that they are not involved in
the early design phases of many projects —preventing
them the ability to pose fundamental operational questions
such as: What are your core requirements? How
do you do business? What outcomes do you envision
for the future? “Thus, they’re usually responding to a set
of ambiguous criteria to provide the best solution,” she
says. “And, with so many applications for delivering AV
content in the market, the easiest and generally most
cost-effective path is to deliver the lowest common
denominator.” This makes it difficult for IT managers
to introduce the most beneficial solutions if they are not
present when core strategic decisions are being made.
Distinct Short-Term and Long-
Term Goals
Derek Joncas, manager, product marketing for the
Control Systems Hardware and Software Business at
Extron Electronics, points out that this initial planning
should account for the future. “In many spaces, this
technology is not going to be refreshed every year; it
will be refreshed over some specified period of time,” he
says. This requires both IT and AV managers to consider
present-day use as well as potential use down the road.
This need for communication and planning is
especially exacerbated in infrastructure-wide deployments—
such as gatekeepers, MCUs and gateways—as
illustrated by Mark Stainton-James at the financial firm
BlackRock, headquartered in New York, New York.
“Large companies have seemingly insurmountable hurdles
to overcome and quickly learning who the key IT
decision makers are makes the difference between an
implementation that takes weeks to one
that ends up running into months
or not being successful at all,”
he notes, using the installation
of a session boarder controller
as an example. “This will
need to go through many
different IT departments
including the network
design group, AV design,
security, firewalls, vulnerability
testing and the data center
team.” He advises that having a
senior level IT ‘champion’ to drive
each of the internal IT teams helps to
streamline this process.
Joncas notes that AV systems have a far reach,
requiring those involved in integration projects to have
at least a bit of an understanding about electricity, electrical
systems, the construction process, and, of course,
AV. “For example, you may have some systems that
require some type of special construction, such as
projectors,” he said. “This needs to be coordinated with
everybody from construction management right on
down to the AV integrator.”
IT and AV Nuances
One area of frustration for IT managers can be traced to
the audiovisual industry’s comparatively smaller status
over the IT marketplace. “In the IT world, there are set
standards; things are very rigid,” Lamberson acknowledges.
“There are common control protocols that all
devices will use, and those things are implemented
fairly consistently across different manufacturers and
different companies.” In the audiovisual arena, this level
of standardization doesn’t exist—with, of course, some
exceptions. “Crestron has work diligently to utilize
standard network protocols for the communication of
our devices. However, just because we can play nicely on
a network doesn’t mean that all of this technology just
plugs in and automatically works.”
For example, each projector manufacturer tends
to have its own protocol for projector control. “That
implements variables into the system, which is why you
have custom AV integration,” Lamberson says. “IT managers
may not be used to that; they
may be used to dropping equipment
into a room, plugging it in and it just
comes up and works with a little bit
of set-up.” He adds that with its line
of RoomView connector projectors,
Crestron has attempted to address
protocol challenges by enabling
users to integrate the manufacturer’s
software with other software packages.
“However, that is still not like
the IT world, where everything is
standardized across the board.”
At the same time,
Lamberson argues that
audiovisual technology
manufacturers are not terribly
interested in messing
up the IT network. “Even
though the AV integration
space may be a bit smaller than
the IT world, the manufacturers
of these devices work very hard to
make sure that these devices don’t interfere
with what’s going on in your network,” he
said. “Having some of these appliances on your network
isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” If, for some reason, it is,
there are a number of ways to address the issue, such
as creating a separate network or setting up a V-LAN to
separate the AV devices in the space.
From his vantage point, Lamberson observes that
the majority of AV integration projects fall down when
there is a lack of communication and planning. “It’s
just that simple,” he said. “If you know that there is an
AV integration coming to your space, you need to sit
down with somebody at the AV integration company.”
Only then, he says, can both parties lay the groundwork
to make these systems successful. “It’s important to
understand that these systems are being driven by the
end user; this is technology that customers want. By
working together, we can make sure that these systems
are successful and everybody is happy in the end.”
For Willard, this requires a considerable shift
in how projects are approached in the first place.
“Approaching a project with a low-voltage technology
perspective in the early design phases puts
everything on the table and ensures the architect
constructs a high-performing, fully-integrated and
scalable building,” she says. “Changing the thought
process of constructing a ‘box’ to designing a highperformance
building is something we’re seeing happen
more often in projects and across the industry as
AV and IT convergence continues to gain traction.”
Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor.
info
BlackRock
blackrock.com
Crestron
Electronics, Inc.
crestron.com
Extron
Electronics
extron.com
Judicial Council
of California-Administrative
Office of the
Courts
courts.ca.gov/
|