Moving the Needle
Video security and storage play a significant role in the security space
- By Amanda Potas
- Sep 21, 2021
Video storage has come a long way since its simplistic and inflexible early days. Before more intuitive, scalable, and reliable systems emerged, customers purchased hardware from storage vendors and built their storage infrastructure based on their immediate needs. This meant all their hardware, software, servers and switches represented a timestamp in that organization’s data diet.
These systems served static organizations well. However, for users who had growing data requirements and relied on ever-evolving technologies, these systems were not only difficult to scale, they were also expensive to maintain and often imprecisely met the needs of its users.
For this reason, in 1999, Jeff Burgess founded Burgess Computer Decisions. Beginning as an IT reseller, Burgess set out to build high-availability servers for Fortune 500 companies that outperformed the data storage standards of the day. In 2008, Burgess launched BCDVideo to transition his company to build enterprise-quality video recording solutions. Today, BCD has a footprint that includes more than 175,000 systems recording over 3.5 million cameras in 90 countries on six continents.
The Rise of Purpose-built Solutions
This burgeoning success directly mirrors the explosion of the data-sphere, expected to create, capture, copy and consume 181 ZBs of data by 2025, which is 181 billion terabytes or 181 trillion gigabytes, according to Statista. It also did not happen on accident.
Behind BCD’s performance-driven IP video solutions is its partnership with Dell Technologies’ OEM Solutions. Security integrators go to BCD and Dell to find innovative, customized and robustly engineered video storage solutions.
Nuts and Bolts
Since the start, BCD’s goal has been to design purpose-built solutions and deliver the best customer support in the industry. These two tenants are the bedrock for consistent success in their customer relationships. When it comes down to the former, purpose-built solutions, working with Dell Technologies to provide infrastructure hardware was a no-brainer.
BCD tailors its security solutions, using Tier 1 hardware to enable their customers’ needs. “To borrow from an old BASF slogan for video analytics and storage, ‘We take it, and make it better.’ Our customers would appear to agree,” Burgess said.
“Dell Technologies’ OEM Solutions began work with BCD when its former entry-level server vendor left the market, said Kyle Dufresne,, global senior vice president and general manager of OEM Solutions at Dell technologies. “Ultimately, the collaboration led to new design innovation and expanded to include other high-performance solutions such as HCI, storage, networking, and workstations, leading to a better experience for BCD’s customers.”
Video workloads are quite unique. The deployment of tens, if not hundreds, of high-definition, AI-optimized security cameras in a single site has increased bandwidth and data needs tenfold. Security deployments require significantly longer video retention periods while remaining high-performing, scalable and reliable. For security customers to get the most out of their video appliances, they need someone with the experience and innovation of BCD.
IP video security solutions require extensive pre-planning and design compared to off-the-shelf IT appliances not meant to withstand the requirements of video. That’s why BCD takes Dell Technologies’ bespoke infrastructure and incorporates the right memory, hard drives, testing and validation needed for IP video, as well as the individual needs of each end-user.
Ensuring the uptime of these purpose-built video data infrastructure solutions is just as important as its capabilities. One exclusive integration BCD offers for monitoring these systems is its Harmonize iDRAC (Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller) plug-in. The Harmonize iDRAC plug-in enables users to monitor servers proactively and predict hardware failures through their preferred VMS platform.
When dealing with large amounts of critical data, the Harmonize iDRAC plug-in is the perfect safeguard. Nobody has the experience or the lab for substantial research and development like BCD when it comes down to it. This makes BCD the ideal IP video data infrastructure provider.
Going Above and Beyond: Testing and Validation
Eugene Kozlovitser, BCD’s technology director, explained that BCD has set certification and validation benchmarks well beyond what the current security hardware offers.
“Today, due to the rise of new technologies and ‘lean’ security infrastructure approaches, the most innovative software companies are always struggling to find the right hardware vendor that can offer a full spectrum of products and services including testing and validation,” Kozlovitser said. “When a software provider is trying to establish the maximum breaking point of their software, BCD is usually the first ones they contact.”
He also explained that BCD’s software agnostic approach can easily scale out and redesign its testing facilities to optimize any suite of software products for their customers. In addition, the capability of hardware intake validation, factory authorized testing, soak testing, and risk analysis allows BCD to be the most trusted platform in the security industry.
Going Above and Beyond: Supply Chain Expertise
When it comes to delivering products to customers who need them, BCD delivers. When shortages of video graphic cards, hard drives, CPUs arise, BCD is able to stay one step ahead because it orders components by the truckload and has multiple, strategically located warehouses throughout the world for just-in-time inventory. BCD works hand-in-hand with their customers to ensure organizations can address immediate security concerns the moment they arise, instead of having to wait weeks, if not months, for back-ordered hardware to arrive.
With these standards are consistently met—a best-in-class product development and design, customer support and supply chain maximization—BCD is setting a new standard in the safety and security sphere. In the most sensitive security environments, where protecting critical assets is the number one priority, BCD is building technology today, to secure the industries of tomorrow.
Looking Forward
For end-users looking to implement, upgrade or expand their security systems, thoughtfully designed appliances, like those engineered and built by BCD through their Dell Technologies partnership, will meet the needs of many security scenarios. The key to delivering better system performance and lower total cost of ownership across the board is bringing together top-tier technologies and industry-leading system design.
This article originally appeared in the September / October 2021 issue of Security Today.