Integrated Security with Video Surveillance on VCE Vblock System and EMC Isilon

ESG Lab Review Integrated Security with Video Surveillance on VCE Vblock System and EMC Isilon Date: June 2015 Authors: Tony Palmer, Senior Lab Analyst, and Jon Oltsik, Senior Principal Analyst Abstract: This ESG Lab review documents hands-on testing of the ability of the VCE Vblock System and VCE Technology Extension for EMC Isilon storage to drive value from video surveillance as part of an overall security strategy. Testing focused on the functionality, security, simplicity, and performance of the converged VCE solution, which is designed to provide a scalable, flexible, end-to-end platform for video surveillance deployments. The Challenges Based on a survey of 302 organizations operating in North America, ESG found that more than three-quarters (78%) of respondent businesses reported utilizing video surveillance technology.1 Although video surveillance has traditionally been a task handled by facilities or physical security groups, IT departments are increasingly involved as these implementations continue to evolve from analog cameras with proprietary DVRs to IP-based solutions with networked storage options. Respondents were asked to identify the greatest challenges with respect to these implementations, and many were related to IT infrastructure, as seen in Figure 1. Figure 1. Top Five Challenges with Current Video Surveillance Implementations At a high level, what would you say are your organization’s greatest challenges with your current video surveillance implementations? (Percent of respondents, N=150, multiple responses accepted) Search and retrieval of video surveillance footage 30% required for investigations, etc. High cost of onsite service/maintenance calls 29% Impact on network bandwidth 29% Onsite camera failures 28% Difficult for IT to manage growing volumes of video 26% surveillance data 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2015. 1 Source: ESG Research Brief, Video Surveillance: Now on IT’s Watch, December 2013. The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab’s expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab report was sponsored by VCE. © 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ESG Lab Review: Integrated Security with Video Surveillance on VCE Vblock System and EMC Isilon 2 Of the five most commonly cited video surveillance challenges, three—search and retrieval of archive footage; impact on network bandwidth; and difficulty managing growing volumes of video surveillance data—have direct storage and/or network infrastructure implications. ESG believes that video surveillance deployments present these challenges to IT departments for multiple reasons, including the transition from analog to digital surveillance equipment (which is driving demanding network traffic), increasing storage capacity requirements, stringent physical/cybersecurity requirements, and a potential lack of video surveillance knowledge/experience on the part of IT. While IT professionals know all about servers, storage, and networking equipment, many haven’t been able to invest enough time in learning about surveillance equipment from a technology perspective to gain the expertise needed to deal with image quality, compression, imaging, and physical security best practices. A platform where surveillance and security workloads can be fully supported can enable organizations to better utilize their existing skill sets while removing the burden of building environments to support video surveillance from scratch. Trends in Physical and IT Security Convergence The convergence of physical and IT security has been discussed publicly for more than a decade, and experts have been predicting that organizations will be able to merge the technologies of physical security (e.g., the card readers and scanners that admit employees into their buildings) with IT security (e.g., the authentication and authorization applications and servers that allow users to access corporate networks and assets on their computers). Factors driving the convergence of physical and IT security include the movement of cameras from coax connected devices feeding DVRs to Ethernet connected devices feeding IT-managed storage repositories over IT-managed networks. As the industry moves from analog tapes to ESG spoke with the Security Access Architect at a digital images, organizations can deploy more cameras at multinational pharmaceutical development and higher resolution, which drives the need for more storage manufacturing organization where convergence is capacity and performance, more network connectivity, and happening today. The Architect noted, “What used the processing power to run video management software (VMS) to make sense of it all. to be a manual, multiple day process, reviewing numerous tapes in search of a specific event, can Physical security systems, traditionally the first bulwark now be accomplished in about an hour, leveraging against unauthorized access to physical corporate assets, have also been relied on to protect digital assets. Bad multiple data sources using analytics software to actors wishing to gain access to corporate applications and match users’ faces to their digital identity in a protected data needed to gain entry to a company's offices. converged system environment.” In the age of universal internet access, IT assets and proprietary data can no longer be completely protected by physical security systems. Multi-factor access authentication—the merging of physical and network access control—is providing a torrent of big data that can be leveraged by analytics platforms. Video and image analysis, facial recognition, ID card swipes/scans, computer/network logons, and biometrics can be used to automatically recognize patterns and detect anomalies. Virtualization is playing a big role in convergence as well, enabling organizations to scale the deployment of VMS and video analytics software in virtual servers, and improving manageability and online scalability to enable management by non-IT security personnel or general server administrators without the need for dedicated networking, storage, and server specialists. ESG interviewed two large organizations in various stages of converging their physical and IT security strategies: one is a multinational pharmaceutical developer and manufacturer, and the other is a large health management organization. Both organizations reported enhanced physical security due to this initiative, which has provided them with the ability to expand the scope and effectiveness of monitoring, while VMS and analytics enable them to positively verify identity and ensure compliance with stringent government regulations. Deploying a converged security approach on a converged infrastructure platform like VCE clearly makes a lot of sense for these organizations and should for businesses in other © 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ESG Lab Review: Integrated Security with Video Surveillance on VCE Vblock System and EMC Isilon 3 verticals as well. Converged infrastructure reduces technological and organizational cost and complexity and could help organizations to better prioritize risk and create a comprehensive converged security business plan. In addition to the pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations interviewed, organizations in many diverse industries are driving integrated security in converged system environments. Transportation – Monitoring airports, train stations, and roads to strengthen counter-terrorism, monitor theft, and improve traffic control. State and Local Education (SLED) – Law enforcement, school surveillance, and facility management to ensure public safety, prevent crimes, and report suspicious behavior. Energy – Monitoring oil, gas, electricity, and utility systems to protect power plants and grids, monitor asset use, and detect anomalies. Hospitality and Property Management – Monitoring casinos, hotels, malls, and real-estate management to detect fraud, provide behavior-based customer offers, and collect environmental evidence. The Solution: VCE Vblock System and EMC Isilon Storage for Video Surveillance The VCE Vblock System is a well-known and extensively deployed integrated computing platform (ICP) that combines best-of-breed technologies from industry-leading vendors. VCE offers a range of Vblock Systems that businesses can choose from to suit their workload needs. With Cisco compute and networking, EMC storage and data protection, and VMware virtualization and management, Vblock Systems are designed to make it simpler and quicker for organizations to deploy a complete IT platform that has been pre-integrated, pre-validated, and pretested with release certification matrices (RCM) serving as a basis for VCE seamless support. Building off the preexisting success of VCE’s integrated computing platform, VCE released the VCE Technology Extension for EMC Isilon storage to extend the business value of VCE. Organizations can

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