Network and CCTV survey for a museum complex

The task

The management of a museum complex in Moscow has to decide what to do with an old network and its surveillance cameras. The decision needs more than an estimate by eye: it needs a picture of the current state that can be checked, showing what exactly has been established, where that is known from and what remains unconfirmed. After that it needs a proposal for the work: stages, timing and order of action.

A LAN is a local area network: the cables, switches and addresses through which the site's devices exchange data. An inventory is a record of what is on site, stating where each piece of data comes from. The work began on management's instruction in September 2026.

The solution

A set of documents that can be signed and handed to management, plus the sources it is built from. What is done:

• A fact base of the survey in which every statement names its source: video surveillance, the network address plan, measurements of the commercial department's workstations.
• Five internal memos of the site's document flow, each in two formats: a Markdown source and a signature-ready docx.
• A commercial proposal for network works: risks, scope, six stages and timing.
• A working document of decisions and open questions: what has been decided and why, what has not and who decides.
• A video-surveillance section obtained by a remote survey of the running server on 7 September 2026.
• A script that builds docx from Markdown in the accepted layout: A4, Times New Roman 12, 1.25 cm first-line indent.

How it works

The fact base: every statement with a source

The fact base has three documents: video surveillance, the address plan "as is" and the commercial department's measurements. Every statement carries a source: a server log, a settings file, measurements and a calculation. Anything not confirmed by a source is moved into "needs checking on site" lists. This lets management see the line between what is established and what is assumed.

Internal memos: report, instruction, interim report

The documents follow the ordinary document flow of an institution: a system administrator's report to the head of department, the managing director's instruction to run an inventory, the head of department's memo with the breakdown, and an interim report. A separate memo raises the question of processing employees' personal data, which lies outside the department's technical competence. The report was filed as interim, ahead of the instruction's deadline, because part of what was found cannot wait.

The commercial proposal: six stages of work

The work is split into six stages with a total duration of 11 to 18 weeks. The first priority is stages 1 and 2: a survey with documentation plus urgent video-surveillance measures, over three to five weeks. Both stages run on the existing equipment and replace nothing. This way the site gets a result before any procurement decision is taken.

Remote survey of video surveillance

The video-surveillance section was obtained by administering the running server on 7 September 2026: the state of the archive, the second stream, the backup, the list of changes and the planned work window are described. This departs from the decision to survey on site, so it is set out as a separate section, and whether to record the departure is decided on site.

Documents as code: Markdown, git and docx builds

A document's source is Markdown: people can read it directly and its edit history lives in git. The docx version is built by a Python script (the python-docx library). The .gitignore file blocks keys, access configurations, dumps and exports, and service passwords are described in words in the documents, never as values. The repository holds no secrets, no product code and no copies of the site's data.

Results

• A set is assembled: the commercial proposal, a working document with open questions, five internal memos and three fact-base documents.
• Every fact-base statement is tied to a source, and the unconfirmed is kept apart.
• Discrepancies in the data are recorded: 68 cameras according to a copy of the server catalogue and 70 as of 7 September 2026.
• The interim report was filed within the instruction's deadline.
• Documents build into docx with one command and stay editable as Markdown.

Technologies and why

• Markdown — the document source: readable without special software and easy to keep in git.
• Word (docx) — the format for signing and handing over to management.
• Python and python-docx — building docx from Markdown in a consistent layout.
• Git — edit history and protection against leaking secrets through .gitignore.

Status

In progress. The repository is versioned by date: the document set was assembled on 5 September 2026 and the video-surveillance section was added on 7 September 2026. There are no version numbers.

Next: an on-site survey. Until it is done, the subnet masks and connectivity between them, the active equipment, the list of ports open to the external network, the mapping of cameras to switch addresses and ports, the video archive depth and the state of the face-recognition subsystem remain unestablished. A final report follows the survey, and the dates of the memos are to be checked against the actual document flow. Other details about the client are not disclosed.