User authentication and authorization is a key aspect of security on an enterprise network.
All the network's known users, including administrators, have a user profile. This profile identifies the user's email account, access privileges, group memberships, etc. The guiding philosophy of user access is "least privilege." That is, users should have the least privileges they can get by with and still do their jobs.
Permission to enter a network, and what rights you have once there, are governed by a group of technologies and policies known collectively as Network Access Control (NAC).
NAC is based on an idea that is simple to understand, and challenging to implement: when you log onto a network, who you are should determine what you can do. “Who you are”
can be determined by much more than your username and password. Yes, identification and authentication are part of NAC ‐ the right to access certain VLANs, files or programs may be directly associated with your login. However, NAC may look at other factors to determine what rights you should have.
For instance, NAC may examine the endpoint you're using and limit your rights if it's not sufficiently secure. For example, is the anti‐virus software on the computer up‐to‐date? If
Once a user is granted access to a network in general, his specific rights within the network may be governed by an access control list (ACL). ACL are typically configured on the network routers. The ACL controls what is permitted to travel through the router based on type of traffic, source, and/or destination. The ACL may also contain network privileges regarding who can access what parts of the network. If your audiovisual system will require special access rights, be sure that network security personnel create an ACL for the system and add the appropriate end users.
The enterprise network will be protected by a web of dedicated hardware and/or software, known as firewalls. A firewall is any technology, hardware, or software, that protects a network by preventing intrusion by unauthorized users and/or regulating traffic permitted to enter or exit the network. A firewall controls what traffic may pass through a router connecting one network to another. Firewalls control access across any network
boundaries, including between an enterprise network and the Internet, or between LANs within an enterprise.
A firewall is really a set of policies, implemented across a range of devices. Firewalls identify network traffic by port. A port is a number identifying the application layer
protocol that sent the network data. In essence, firewall policy within an enterprise can be distilled to one of two approaches:
All network traffic will be allowed unless it is specifically forbidden ‐ default allow All network traffic will be forbidden unless it is specifically allowed ‐ default deny
The former emphasizes ease of use, but forces the network administrators to try to predict how the network may be attacked. The latter is more secure, but makes new systems more difficult to configure. In either case, the responsibility of the AV professional is the same:
document the ports and protocols each device uses and coordinate those needs with the
Firewalls use many different strategies to protect the network. For example, many firewalls perform network address translation, replacing the local address of devices on the network with their own globally routable address before sending the data out to the Internet. This helps to protect the network by hiding the original source of the data.
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Firewalls also perform packet filtering. In packet filtering, the network administrator sets up rules regarding what kinds of devices can send data through the firewall, or which ports are allowed to send data through the firewall. Packet filtering may even inspect the contents of packets before allowing them to pass through the firewall.
(CLICK) Port forwarding is another common firewall technology. Port forwarding combines network address translation and packet filtering. The firewall inspects the packet based on packet filtering rules. It is also set up to translate certain ports to private addresses on the network. This allows incoming, unrequested traffic under controlled conditions. For
example, the computer with a specific IP address may be allowed to send Telnet commands over port 23 to AV devices, but port 23 packets from any other address will be rejected.
The firewall detects the IP address and the port, and translates that port to an address, automatically forwarding the Telnet command to the designated device.
That’s it for the overview of networking security. Now you should know about the access policies and firewall configurations you may need to discuss with IT personnel. In the case of conferencing applications, you may even need to discuss purchasing additional security devices, like an application gateway or session border controller.
Security is the IT professional's main concern. If you can demonstrate that you understand that concern and are working to accommodate it, your coordination efforts will be much more successful.
This concludes the Networking presentation. Remember, though networking is very likely to show up somewhere on the CTS exam, it’s not likely to make up a big portion. Still, when you become a CTS‐certified professional, you’ll be expected to coordinate with IT personnel in order to leverage network infrastructure for the AV system. Your goal is communicate the system’s network needs. In doing so, you need to demonstrate that you understand
network capabilities and security.
The network is a big part of your clients’ site environment. It’s very important to be aware
interested in learning more about these topics, you should refer to the CTS Exam Guide:
Second Edition or the InfoComm course Networking Technology. You can also ask designers, installers, and IT professionals at your organization how networking impacts the design and implementation of their AV systems.
1. job costing and company profitability
a. accurate data is critical – review invoices for products and services i. verify rates for equipment rental
ii. look for shipping charges b. utilization rates
i. downtime between jobs can be costly ii. track everything
c. plan to invoice as soon / often as practical i. always read / follow the contract documents ii. invoice monthly
iii. Invoice according to project milestones or percent complete
One of the ways to get good at job costing is to have accurate data which means going back and looking at previous jobs and finding out what things cost.
This shows verifying things such as rentals rates and knowing shipping charges.
We also know the cost of equipment when we purchase it but what is it going to cost for that installation technician to go out to the job site and install it? How much time are we going to allocate for the person to go in a commission it to make sure that it’s set up properly?
Do we allocate time for after hours? What if we can’t get in the facility until after 5:00 pm? That could have an impact on the hourly rate for our employees.
Or on the weekends?
So we need to look at these different costs that cold come up.
And are we using our time wisely once we’re on the job?
Downtime – Drive time – rush hour or off hours? Do you budget for lost productive time stuck in traffic? Do you have everything you need before you go to the job site? Hardware, connectors, wire, tools,
Are we going to bill or allocate for every hour?
One way to figure this out is to start tracking things and having that data available for later. So if on a previous job that took fifteen hours when we allocated ten, why was that? Did we not bill enough hours or were there things in there that we should have known about or things we didn’t plan for?
From a client standpoint, we want to make sure our people can get in and do their job effectively so they can keep their costs down and keep their bids down.
Can we do things it the shop like building racks or testing equipment? It’s always more efficient to do things at the shop than on site.
Invoicing is important – if we can bill earlier, we can collect earlier and keep the amount of money down that we’re borrowing from the bank, saving interests costs.
So ordering at the right time, billing quickly and collecting effectively help keep our costs down.
It says here invoice monthly, but typically the contract is a bit different – typically you bill when you reach certain milestones. Bill as soon as those milestones are reached and don’t let it sit.
1. elements of job costing
• labor
• materials
• services (subcontract, rental, etc)
• transportation (people, products)
• housing (people, products)
• permits, licenses, parking
• security
• financial – cost of money
Labor certainly needs to be considered. Are we using our regular competent technicians or will this require someone who has had some factory training? What if it requires someone from the manufacturer to come out and calibrate Materials goes beyond the regular line items such as projectors and screens – it’s the materials you use to build the it?
structure to mount the projector. It takes time to build that structure and that goes back to the labor costs. Also includes thinks like connectors, heat shrink, specialized adapters, etc. Includes things like wire rope, thimbles, saddles, shackles, etc.
Services include lift rentals, stc.
Transporting personnel to and from site – company or personal vehicles? Insurance costs. You have some really big rear projection screens to transport – do you have a box truck or will you need to rent one? For how long?
If we’re working outside our normal geographic area, we may have hotel, meal and truck rental expenses. Or maybe you have to fly a specialist in to commission a product. What if you’re not able to finish the job on time? How might that impact your costs?
Permits are another expense. If you doing a job in a town or county that you’ve never done work in before, depending upon the dollar amount of the job, you may have to apply for a business license in that town or county.
Parking can be a significant expense in larger areas. What about needing a second person to watch the truck while it’s being unloaded and the other person is in the building? What about down time waiting for an open bay at the loading dock?
1. real labor costs – what is fully burdened labor?
Regular hours or overtime hours? What about access? During normal business hours or are you restricted to evenings and weekends? What about some of the drilling and noise you’ll be creating? Can that occur during normal hours or must that be during off hours?
Taxes and insurance costs are a significant portion of the true hourly cost of an employee. For example, you have withheld from your paycheck 7.65% of your taxable income for FICA, which is for Social Security and Medicare. (Social Security, 6.2% and Medicare, 1.45%) The employer has to match that amount and pay another 7.65% FICA on your behalf which is in addition to the 7.65% that you paid. You may have been completely unaware of this. (If you are self‐employed, you’re responsible for the whole 15.3%.) You have to have General Liability insurance that covers you in case you really damage something at a client’s
site. You may need Errors & Omissions insurance, which is another type of business liability policy, which, due to a mistake, causes financial harm to another. You may need insurance specifically for a certain job and that’s a separate rider at additional cost on your existing policy. In some cases you may have to post a bond
From Wikipedia: Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance helps to protect a professional, an individual or a company, from bearing the full cost of defense for lawsuits relating to an error or omission in providing covered Professional Services. This is a separate coverage from a standard general liability or property insurance policy.
Benefits – those days that you’re not actually producing billable time. And if you’re out, how does that affect the availability of other personnel?
So your actual hourly rate is sometimes much more than just the hourly rate that you might see on your paycheck – taxes, insurance, benefits and the fact that your company is not able to bill for you 100% of the time, only part of the time – all these things have to be accounted for so that your can properly estimate the actual job cost.
The total cost, after all these things are added up, is known as the fully burdened labor rate. I’ve seen one source that says in the construction industry, which we are related to, says the fully burdened labor rate may be 1.5 to 2.5 times the employees hourly rate. Obviously that depends on benefits, etc.
It’s very easy to lose scope of a project, especially when there are multiple sub‐projects taking place at the same time and some projects are dependent upon other projects. The importance of project management is to be able to maintain the scope of the project, while staying within the project specifications and sequencing the events for effective and
smooth work flow.
WBS= work breakdown structure
CTS Exam Guide, 2ndEd., pages 422 (1stEd., page 288) for Work Breakdown Structure.
Coordination, scheduling, sequencing, communication and project documentation are all important key elements in project management.
The AV professional must be able to:
•Communicate between stakeholders (engineers, owners, architects, project team, etc.)
•Produce project documentation (Gantt charts, timelines, progress reports, etc.)
•Manage changes (request for information [RFI], change orders/variation order [CO/VO],
•Coordinate site activities (other contractors, etc.)
•Review project documentation
•Coordinate resources (vans, labor, tools, etc.)
•Manage project activities according to schedule
•Obtain customer confirmation (sign‐offs, documentation, etc.)
You use project management as a way to measure your project as you go. Some things will happen
a little sooner then you planned and some things will be a little bit delayed. But hopefully in the end, you will have completed certain milestones on time given the agreement you have with your client.
It also included coordination of the project as it goes – schedule for when things are expected to come in, when they should be installed. It outlines in what order or sequence these things happen.
A huge amount of time is spent in communicating. Communication is a big part of this. Early on ‐ communicating what they think needs to be done. Communicating and coordinating with other trades to make sure they’re not pushing our schedule back or that we’re not pushing their schedule back.
And finally the project documentation that goes with the management is posted so that all can see what’s going on with that project so that there are no delays and no surprises.
AV project coordination covers many different aspects of the project and it is not limited to just the AV portion of the project. Sometimes many other areas must be completed before certain AV components can be started or completed. Such as waiting to install sensitive equipment until the construction “dust” settles.
Other areas of the project must also be monitored by the AV project manager to make sure that considerations for AV equipment or specifications are met. Such as monitoring where an HVAC or sprinkler system is being placed, to keep it from being placed where a projector is to be installed or cable is to be run.
The most common way to create a project schedule is to create a visual organizational chart that helps manage events. Common charts are:
A Gantt chart ‐uses horizontal bars to show tasks and their relation to a time line. It helps point out when a task begins, how long it will take and when it ends and if it overlaps another task.
A WBS ‐It is a tree‐like structure that organizes tasks and subordinate tasks. It shows main tasks that have sub‐tasks related to the main task.
Pert Chart ‐ critical path determines the minimum time to completion.
CTS Exam Guide, 2ndEd., pages 423 (1stEd., page 289) There are three basic ways to track a project.
One is a Gantt chart that provides a timeline for all the activities that have to happen. There is the
WBS or Work Breakdown Structure that shows tasks and subtasks. And then there is the Pert Chart or CPM for Critical Path Method.
You can get software packages for these or you can also draw them out on paper.
AV project coordination covers many different aspects of the project and it is not limited to just the AV portion of the project. Sometimes many other areas must be completed before certain AV components can be started or completed. Such as waiting to install sensitive equipment until the construction “dust” settles.
Other areas of the project must also be monitored by the AV project manager to make sure that considerations for AV equipment or specifications are met. Such as monitoring where an HVAC or sprinkler system is being placed, to keep it from being placed where a projector is to be installed or cable is to be run.
The most common way to create a project schedule is to create a visual organizational chart that helps manage events. Common charts are:
Here is an example of a Gantt Chart showing dependencies and timeline.
Schedule elements are basically the same as a large project design Two tracks – base building track and AV electronics track
With short term projects, the infrastructure and electronics designs will often overlap so that both are in full swing at the same time for both the design and installation phases.
The AV design and installation schedules may more closely follow the base building schedule.