SANTA ROSA, Calif.--It’s your classic IT story. “We started out in our garage quite a few years ago, building computers and working in the telecom space,” said Brody Carlson, president of ConnectionsIT. But this isn’t the Apple Computers story, and it isn’t your classic security integrator creation myth. 

However, ConnectionsIT has leveraged its networking pedigree to become a player in the gaming vertical, in the last month completing IP surveillance systems for the Black Bart Casino in Mendicino County, Calif., and the Spirit River, in Tulsa, Okla. The latter has roughly 1,400 IP cameras, an installation ConnectionsIT is calling “the largest installation of IP cameras at any casino in the world.”

Nor do industry commentators challenge this claim. A query to Pelco resulted in an admission that, if you’re talking pure IP cameras, it’s larger than anything they know about. An Axis representative hedged his bets by saying, “1,400 is, if not the largest, definitely among the largest.”

And those cameras create a lot of data. River Spirit sports 1.4 petabytes of storage.

Carlson credits recent advances in camera and compression technology with opening up the casino market. Currently, surveillance is about 60 percent of ConnectionsIT’s revenue, with much of the rest coming from managed IT services. The company has 40 employees and offices here, as well as in Nevada and Oklahoma. Carlson said he expects to open new offices near the Great Lakes and in Southern California later this year.