Smarter Storage
Benefits drive expansion of IP video systems in Bergen County, N.J.
- By Francois Wolf
- Jul 01, 2015
The advantages of video surveillance are well known, but at times, the
full value is realized only after a system is installed. Realizing the
benefits of IP video and its value beyond traditional security purposes,
often leads to system expansion as customers seek to leverage
video for more uses and realize expanded video coverage.
As an example, Bergen County, N.J. has expanded its IP video system in multiple
phases spanning eight years. Each new phase has built upon, and was largely
inspired by, the success of the previous phases. Every phase has added new value,
and the combined end result has greatly improved the operation of multiple Bergen
County departments, including corrections, the courts, the prosecutor’s office
and probation. This success story will take a closer look at how the evolution of
the system has benefited Bergen County, with value accelerating as the system has
evolved and developed over time.
Evolution of the Project
The Bergen County Courthouse and Jail in Bergen County, N.J., is a juxtaposition
of old and new. Built in 1911, the Bergen County Courthouse is a historical
landmark with architecture that reflects the Beaux Arts classicism popular at the
time for public buildings. Today, the courthouse and jail campus integrates stateof-
the-art technology featuring a computerized central command center tied to
all inmate-housing areas, integrated security for the protected premises, and a duress
and panic alarm system. But, with its prior video system, the Bergen County
Courthouse and Jail lacked strong images to provide personnel with the critical
video needed to respond proactively to threats, liability issues and other problems.
The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) in Hackensack, N.J., is the largest
law enforcement agency in all of Bergen County and provides a variety of functions
for 70 municipalities under its umbrella. The BCSO is responsible for management
and administration of a variety of facilities and services, including the
Bergen County Courthouse and Jail.
The Value of Video
In 2004, Phil Lisk joined BCSO as the director of IT Technology. At that time,
there was one server and 20 workstations. Workloads and capabilities have evolved
over the past 10 years; Bergen County now has 1,300 different devices on the network
and operates four separate networks.
The county previously relied on an analog-based video system to help ensure
safety and security across its premises. More often than not, however, the cameras
did not provide the broad range of coverage required to capture video of what did
or did not happen, especially in the jail and inmate housing areas.
“We needed to upgrade our security system because we needed to see what was
happening in the jail,” Lisk said. “At one time, there was one camera covering a
high-risk area, and we were not able to capture video of incidents, making it extremely
difficult to prove something didn’t happen. We needed complete coverage
to be able to be more effective.”
Lisk looked at the costs of upgrading to an IP-based video solution and was
quickly able to prove that a new system with expanded camera coverage and reliable
storage could ensure the organization would have evidence of what occurred within
BCSO facilities. “Once I reviewed the numbers of what it would cost for a new system, I was able to show that we could
further protect ourselves in court and
thus, mitigate our liability exposure.”
Ensuring Security and
Controlling Liability
BCSO now has more than 800 surveillance
cameras, which are tied to a
Pivot3 hyper-converged infrastructure
platform to ensure video capture. The
comprehensive system delivers highquality
video images to allow county
officials to monitor video in real time,
access stored video for post-event investigations
and enhance situational
awareness to ensure the safety of law
enforcement. Bergen County leverages
video to address liability issues such
as slip-and-fall claims, and take full
advantage of redundancy features and
application failover to protect against
natural disasters and terror attacks.
Today, Pivot3 provides more than one
Petabyte of video storage to BCSO.
“It is very important for us to have
video storage with a high level of protection
and redundancy, and that is
mainly why we chose Pivot3,” Lisk
said. “Pivot3 delivers the high availability,
high recovery and high capacity
we require.”
The most recent phase of the installation
extends the surveillance network
to the Bergen County prosecutor’s office
to enable rapid sharing of video
evidence. This initiative delivers significant
cost savings of more than 20 percent
due to the streamlining of processes
between departments. Furthermore,
multiple agencies across the county are
merging practices to be more effective
and simplify operations, developing
further cost efficiencies across county
infrastructure.
The Pivot3 hyper-converged infrastructure
appliances offer the county
a substantial value proposition in the
products’ inherent scalability, while
delivering high availability with application
failover to secure investments
in captured video, now and into the
future. The hyper-converged infrastructure
platforms simplify video control,
administration and maintenance, seamlessly
delivering video management and
video storage capabilities in a single solution.
The technology also eases the
complexity of video management and
storage because it is based on common
IT methods and processes.
Lisk said he is interested in looking
at new ways to incorporate the benefits
of hyper-converged infrastructure into
new areas. Pivot3 appliances can be
layered to deliver centralized management
capabilities, data storage, disaster
recovery and mobile monitoring.
“Since we’ve experienced the reliability
and scalability that Pivot3 appliances
deliver, we are moving our
digital images from crime scene investigations
to Pivot3 appliances,” he
said. “We look to further expand our
capabilities with Pivot3 in the future to
have larger storage capacity. Our goal
is to have an all-inclusive system that is
seamless to users.”
This article originally appeared in the July 2015 issue of Security Today.