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Video storage focused on Milestone

Video Storage Solutions (VSS) was formed with the single objective of providing system integrators who are part of the Milestone Community with verified video recording and storage appliances through authorised distributors.

A division of the BCD International brand of companies, VSS specialises in offering video appliances that are pre-engineered with Milestone XProtect, Seagate Skyhawk surveillance-grade drives and its Storage Accelerator, which significantly increases storage scalability, performance and reliability for Milestone Systems’ projects. (VSS is distributed in South Africa by First Distribution’s Digital Security & IoT Division.)

In its decade-old relationship with Milestone, BCD International currently has more than 37 000 Milestone-infused systems recording over 3 000 000 cameras on six continents.

VSS is a one-stop-shop for pre-engineered Milestone-verified appliances that can withstand the taxing video data write load of systems with high camera counts.

Practical benefits

Here are six key reasons why Milestone users and integrators should consider the VSS portfolio.

Guaranteed performance. The VSS engineering team certifies the bandwidth capabilities of each appliance ordered through one of its authorised distributors. System integrators can rest assured that they are delivering an effective video recording and storage solution with guaranteed performance, provided bandwidth requirements do not exceed the appliance’s specification.

Performance with VSS Storage Accelerator. Unique to VSS (and other BCD International-branded appliances) the VSS Storage Accelerator eliminates disk I/O bandwidth bottlenecks. With the ability to process 700 Mbps of throughput on a single 1 GbE NIC, data captured by up to 700 cameras can be efficiently recorded on a single server – all without the expense and space requirements of 15 000 high-speed drives. Since there is more storage in a single appliance, fewer appliances are needed which ultimately creates a more competitive environment for Milestone.

Privacy compliance. Unlike standard warranties that do not allow users to retain hard drives which have failed, both the 3- and 5-year global on-site, next business day, Keep Your Hard Drive Warranty negates the need for customers to have to choose between risking sensitive data falling into the wrong hands or insisting on keeping a faulty hard drive. The latter option likely means they will be breaking the terms of most existing standard warranty agreements.

Pre-sales support services. VSS customers have access to a broad range of services, including RFP response assistance, as well as support with network architecture design, value engineering proposals and bandwidth and storage requirement calculations.

Post-sales support. VSS appliances have a proven track record of reliability. However, should a fault occur, a certified engineer will be assigned to provide first-line hardware and OS support. VSS customers can be assured that this support will remain in place for the lifetime of a project.

Lower cost of ownership. When you take all the above factors into account, VSS delivers solutions that lower the total cost of ownership and are the most cost-effective over the three or five years that the integrator has the project under contract.

Harmonize iDRAC Plug-in for Milestone Systems XProtect VMS

BCD International announced its Harmonize iDRAC plug-in integration with Milestone Systems XProtect VMS. iDRAC, which stands for Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller, is a health monitoring agent for secure remote and local server management, powered by Dell Technologies, that resides on BCD servers and appliances.

BCD has taken the iDRAC service and tightly integrated it with XProtect so that hardware events, notifications and alarms are now presented within the VMS. Now, end-users and system integrators can monitor iDRAC features, such as hard disk status, temperatures, fan speed and power supplies, through XProtect.

BCD’s Harmonize software suite ingests the iDRAC API and listens for specific events, such as drive failure and shares this critical system information in real-time to operators. The integration ultimately empowers end-users and system integrators to be ahead of failures and proactively manage any server crashes that may happen. It also gives them insight as to how well or poor the server resources are being utilised by being able to monitor central processing unit (CPU) and random access memory (RAM) consumption.

For more information contact Francois Malan, First Distribution Digital Security & IoT, francois.malan@firstdistribution.com, www.firstdistribution.com/digital-security-iot

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