Specifying IT & security systems for a new site

CCTV: coverage and storage, not just camera count

A camera count on its own tells you nothing about whether a site is actually covered, or whether the footage will still exist when someone asks for it three weeks later.

• Retention period drives storage, not the other way round — decide how many days of footage you actually need before sizing the recorder, not after.
• SIRA (Dubai's Security Industry Regulatory Agency) sets real installation and equipment standards for commercial CCTV in the emirate — a genuine, checkable requirement on a compliant site, not a marketing phrase.
• Hikvision and Dahua are the two brands most UAE sites already run — matching an existing system to the same brand avoids a second, incompatible NVR.

Access control and biometric attendance are two different jobs

A fingerprint or facial terminal at a door and one at a time clock can look identical, and buyers regularly assume one does both. It usually doesn't.

Cabling and cabinets — the part nobody sees until it fails

Every camera, reader and desk in the building plugs into cabling that disappears behind a wall once the job is done. Getting it wrong is invisible right up until it isn't.

• Cat6 covers standard gigabit runs at typical office distances — it is not the wrong choice for most desks.
• Cat6A is for 10-gigabit speeds, not for longer runs — both grades share the same 100 m channel limit, 90 m in the wall plus the patch leads at each end. What Cat6A buys is 10-gigabit over that full 100 m, where Cat6 carries gigabit the whole way but 10-gigabit only to about 37–55 m. It is the right call for a server room or a backbone meant to last past the next fit-out, not every point in the building. Any run longer than 100 m needs fibre or a switch in between, whichever grade you buy.
• Fibre is for between buildings or floors, a different job priced separately from desk cabling.
• A cabinet with unmanaged cabling inside it is the single most common reason a comms room becomes unserviceable within a year — cable management and airflow are part of the fit-out, not an add-on.

Why "A-to-Z" is the point, not a slogan

The most common failure mode on a new site isn't bad equipment — it's cabling from one contractor, switches from another and Wi-Fi from a third, none of them configured to work together, with no single party responsible when something doesn't.