Security Technology Executive

SEP-OCT 2017

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24 SECURIT Y TECHNOLOGY E XECUTIVE • September/October 2017 • www. SecurityInfoWatch.com virtualization. They also will want to ensure that the vendor they choose actually tests and validates its products and provides implementation and sizing guidelines. Sizing data is key – with poorly designed solutions, you risk spending too much on technology you don't need or developing a platform that can't handle your data needs. Customers also want a vendor that has a proven commitment to the surveillance industry, and that includes having customer references. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) often work with larger vendors to bring their unique solu- tions to the market. There are numerous OEMs offering specific appliances and solutions for the surveillance industry, but all are not created equal. Look for companies that use reliable, best-of-breed, industry-leading hardware as the foundation of their solutions. Vendors also should provide – or have partners who can provide – a range of ser- vices such as assessment, consultation, design, cost-benefit analysis, and integration, as well as ongoing support. The cloud also is becoming an option for some customers, and the same rules should apply to the cloud as they do to any other infrastructure – is the cloud environment scalable, tested, validated and proven? What about data? Do you own the data if it's in the cloud? Those kind of domain issues is a big deal in evidence data more so than with a lot of other data. The key to the cloud is understanding the costs behind it, especially as it applies to surveillance and evidence data. In the surveillance arena, the cost lies in the bandwidth. Consider a larger organiza- tion that has 4K video on their hundreds of surveil- lance cameras. The bandwidth needed to send all the data to the cloud and then back from the cloud These organizations also will need enterprise- level servers with enterprise storage platforms behind them. This infrastructure should include security software, high-end desktops, and 4K moni- tors to display the video and an open platform for greater flexibility and cost efficiencies. The plat- form must be able to not only address demands in the core data center – where most of the data is stored, archived and analyzed – but also reach to the network edge, where there are some video management and storage done closer to the cam- eras themselves. Having an open platform is a key part of this. Our customers overwhelmingly tell us they want open platforms so they can pick and choose the software that best fits their environments, and being able to choose the surveillance apps they need is a sig- nificant benefit of an IT-grade infrastructure. They are not locked into a vertically-integrated solution that requires hardware and software upgrades every time they want to make a change. Such an infrastructure also makes the surveil- lance data portable. Once that happens, the data can bring much more value to the organization – for example, it can be moved between on-premises and off-premises boundaries and shared across appli - cations. Moving away from the silos of the black boxes and embracing a more enterprise approach to the data enables users to create a "public safety data lake," a single platform where all of the video data and evidence can be stored and managed. From here, the data can be more easily accessed, searched and analyzed. Now, agencies can more quickly determine what's happening where and to whom and make better decisions around everything from staffing to resource allocation. Search is more efficient because the data from the disparate sources are all in one place, and agencies can more easily apply such applications as facial recognition to the data. The combination of video data and big data can deliver real-time access, instant event search, the ability to connect with other agencies for real-time surveillance and a greater chance to capture crimi- nals after an incident occurs. Evaluating Vendors When There is a Cloudiness of Cloud Options Organizations that want to implement an enterprise solution will want to be careful when choosing a vendor. They will need a vendor that has a broad and open portfolio, given the myriad components that are needed to deploy such a platform, from servers and storage to networking , security, and About the Author: Ken Mills is the General Manager for Dell EMC V ideo Sur veillance Solutions. Public sector agencies and enterprises are looking for an architecture that will enable them to unlock the value of all this surveillance data they're accumulating. SECURED CITIES

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