Is Your Video Surveillance Doing the Job?

Without effective real-time monitoring, your system could be missing critical video capture.

Consider this scenario: A nurse manager on one of your units notices a sudden uptick in missing supplies from the unit storage closet. Since the manager knows that the hospital installed security cameras in highly sensitive areas like this one, she asks the security department to pull recent footage so she can research who is regularly accessing the store room. What she learns is surprising – but not what she expected. That’s because the surveillance camera in that area had not been recording since a storm-related power outage weeks earlier, so footage was nonexistent.  The security team was not aware the camera was offline until it was too late.

At a San Antonio, Texas, hospital, this scenario was all too real recently– but its surveillance cameras were working.  The footage helped the hospital stop an employee who had pilfered $400,000 in medical device equipment.

While employee theft is a serious concern (accounting for nearly half of retailers’  inventory shrinkage, according to a study by the University of Florida), businesses large and small face a myriad of other security and safety challenges as well – from assaults, to false injury claims, break-ins and more.  More and more are turning to video surveillance systems to bolster their facilities’ security. According to a recent Harris Poll, two-thirds of small business owners surveyed pointed to video surveillance as “the most valuable security measure” they deploy.

But as the hospital in our fictional scenario learned, having a system installed is only as good as the monitoring system supporting it.

“This is a common problem we identified years ago,” notes Anthony Garcia, senior IT engineer with TRL Systems. “While this situation is one that doesn’t happen every day, when someone needs to retrieve video for an incident and that video isn’t there, it is a big deal.”

Garcia and the TRL security experts work with an array of Southern California companies to integrate video monitoring into their security systems. “Our clients range from libraries, hospitals, airports and port authorities, to educational facilities and corporate clients,” he notes. “It is critical that their security, IT and facilities teams not only have the right equipment in place, but also have effective tools to ensure that their equipment is fully functioning at all times.”

Until now, most companies have relied on email alerts to notify them when a camera goes down. “If you have a power outage, the servers aren’t automatically going to reboot,” says Gary Chavarria, TRL Security Division general manager. “What we have found through experience is that typically when a server goes down, multiple cameras go down at once. If you set up the system to send email alerts, you are going to get an email for all of those cameras. Because of the volume and frequency of them, those emails often get ignored. What if the customer is out of town, or the guards or security personnel don’t know what to do if they are the ones who get the email?”

Recognizing this issue, the TRL security experts developed a real-time, cloud-based monitoring solution that ensures customers’ system cameras are up and running at all times. TRL’s managed service, called AlertMe, monitors the health and performance of IP/network-based platforms and proactively notifies clients of potential outages. It also provides immediate feedback of system/network failures that can lead to critical problems when neglected.  TRL can monitor a range of devices and systems including networks, VMS (video management system), access control, and even patient monitoring/nurse call systems.

The unique service allows security professionals to get the most from their security investment and provides protection from failure. Unlike other vendors’ solutions, TRL’s AlertMe service provides system alerts and notifications when thresholds are breeched rather than when failures are discovered.

“Our approach is unique in the market by enabling us, and our clients, to be proactive rather than reactive,” says Garcia. “We make sure that the cameras are all recording and they are being utilized. We are monitoring any power situations, the performance of the server and workstations, the system health, everything from the fans, power supply, motherboards, temperature, event logs and rate controller to the memory usage and disk usage.”

In contrast  to an autonomous checkpoint that sends one outage notification without follow up or outage solutions, AlertMe real-time system health monitoring includes warnings, multiple notifications, check-ups until a problem is resolved, and  the ability to immediately dispatch a service tech, if warranted.  Traditional services may let the customer know there is a problem, but then it is up to the customer to resolve it. With the AlertMe service, TRL ensures not only immediate notification but also quick response and real-time problem solving.

“If a video management system experiences a power outage and stops recording, we alert the customer immediately and proactively resolve the problem,” says Chavarria. “We can then remote in, or send in an IT engineer to get the system back online so that they don’t reach a situation where they have lost crucial data.

“This value-added service means our clients can rest easier knowing that when they need that critical piece of video footage, it will be there,” he adds. “It also ensures that the investment they made in their system is being fully leveraged, and that their system is working at top performance and meeting their full requirements.”