Smarter Surveillance Systems With Digital Watchdog

Video surveillance systems are processing more data than ever before. According to a recent IHS report, estimates show that data recorded daily from video surveillance systems will grow to over 2500 petabytes in 2019.

With new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, surveillance systems are not only monitoring areas for security reasons, but also delivering business-critical information for enterprises. For example, for remote patient monitoring, healthcare professionals are using IoT sensors to receive alerts, such as changes in blood pressure, so staff can intervene before a patient’s condition worsens. Retail stores are deploying dwell-time analytics to assess foot traffic in specific areas to improve merchandising. Thanks to the adoption of high-definition cameras, advanced analytics, and AI, surveillance systems are facing increased workloads.

Building Effective Surveillance Systems

Capturing data from numerous end points, such as sensors and video cameras, transferring data and enabling data-hungry analytics applications are some of the greatest challenges facing surveillance systems today. However, dropped frames and data loss continue to be top concerns for system integrators and end users alike. To address these pain points, a more robust surveillance architecture is needed.

System integrators need to implement IT 4.0—a configuration that leverages surveillance-optimized storage solutions at every state of the data workflow— to ensure data flows smoothly from the end points, edge, and cloud. To learn how to apply IT 4.0 framework to your surveillance application, see the infographic below.

Providing a Greater Value to Customers

Security personnel need to ensure that each facet of a surveillance system—from the cameras to the video management software to the NVR—is reliable and effective. To provide customers with enhanced video system performance, Seagate Technology teamed up with video solutions provider, Digital Watchdog. Digital Watchdog is an industry leader in digital recorders, surveillance cameras, and related management software, delivering complete video surveillance solutions for HD over Coax and HD IP systems of any size and for any application.

By pairing Seagate’s SkyHawk^™ and Exos^™ drives with Digital Watchdog’s Blackjack^® servers, Blackjack NAS devices, VMAX^® NVRs, and VMAX DVRs, customers gain a total surveillance solution with technological advantages.

“Our customers expect Digital Watchdog products to deliver crystal-clear video on demand, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, both live and recorded,” said Mark Espenschied, Director of Marketing at Digital Watchdog. “Seagate’s product reliability and corporate responsiveness help us to exceed our customers’ expectations for uptime and performance.”

Technology Differentiators

Digital Watchdog’s (DW^®) complete IP solutions can be customized to the specific needs of any installation. Leveraging open platform components for greater system integration is a hallmark of DW’s surveillance systems, which are enterprise scalable, feature-rich and user-friendly. Powered by DW Spectrum^® IPVMS, DW Blackjack servers support Windows and Linux platforms so customers can use their preferred operating system.

DW’s VMAX IP Plus NVRs streamline installation, allowing users to go from power up to monitoring in minutes. The NVRs provide CCIP™ camera encryption and diagnostics for internal systems so that systems remain secure and up-to-date. Providing up to 16 PoE ports, the NVRs can record and manage single-sensor IP cameras up to 5 megapixel, with 80Mb/s maximum throughput.

Seagate’s SkyHawk and Exos drives are part of its comprehensive suite of storage solutions for security applications. Seagate’s enterprise-class Exos^™ drives provide expanded storage capacity to scale multiple use case needs in the back end—ranging from data retention and analysis to archival. Storage systems with Exos drives can easily scale by storing petabytes of video and metadata from thousands of cameras. These drives also come with Seagate Secure^™ cyber protection features that meet compliance standards such as FIPS and TAA.

A seventh-generation product, Seagate’s SkyHawk^™ and SkyHawk AI can record footage 24×7 and store over 10,000 hours of HD video. SkyHawk AI can support 32 streams of metadata for NVRs enabled with AI and delivers enterprise-class performance and reliability with a workload rate of 550TB/yr and 1.5M MTBF. SkyHawk drives are designed for more than 3× the workload of standard surveillance drives and their rotational vibration sensors deliver improved and sustained performance in 16+ bay NVR systems.

SkyHawk and SkyHawk AI drives also feature embedded software, known as SkyHawk Health Management (SHM), which monitors drive health for added protection, intervention and optional data recovery services. When integrated with DW Spectrum^® IPVMS, SHM gives users updates on their drive’s health status. SHM also provides recommendations to mitigate threats, limit drive deterioration, and prevent data loss. "SHM delivers enhanced drive health monitoring by analyzing multiple parameters related to drive health and using proprietary algorithms to determine potential environmental effects to the drive. Information on system operating conditions, such as system temperature and vibration, enable SHM to recommend preventive actions,” explains Mitch Rose, product line management director.

With a proven track record of reliability, Seagate’s drives were attractive options for the DW team.

“Seagate has a documented history of ruggedness and reliability that convinced us to trust both SkyHawk surveillance drives and Exos drives to meet the demanding needs of data that is being constantly written, quickly searched and easily exported—often simultaneously,” DW’s Mark Espenschied explained. “The SkyHawk management interface [SHM] provides our customers an additional layer of confidence, allowing them to know the status of drive health instantly and comprehensively.”

Recommended Solution

A successful surveillance system is one that records, retrieves, replays, and delivers footage quickly and efficiently. Customers looking for technologies that enhance their overall surveillance system’s performance and longevity should consider Seagate and DW’s integrated solutions.