IN THE BOARDROOM™ with...

Mr. Ken Mills

General Manager

Dell EMC 

IoT and Surveillance

Digital Evidence Storage Needs Grow, Police Need to Think Beyond 3-5 Years

Police departments today process a tremendous amount of video footage as evidence of crimes, which includes managing and storing data and ensuring it is court admissible.

Further, storage requirements for surveillance and body-worn camera data differ widely from state to state, depending on the crime.

Each state is different as far as what the law mandates for the length of retention for the data collected. Minor traffic stops may only need to be kept for 30-45 days, DUI’s for over three years, and Federal crimes may need to be kept for many years or in some cases, indefinitely.

Organizations must think beyond three-year or five-year buying cycles and consider how they will manage and store this video for 25 years or more—on-premises versus in the cloud.

With more than 10 million arrests made in 2016 alone – excluding those for traffic violations – body-worn camera data adds up to a lot of storage. On average, each body cam can expect to require a minimum of 1TB of storage per year. And body cameras are just one component of the video data that police departments are tasked with managing.

In fact, currently there’s a litany of other technologies used by police department and officers collecting evidence.  This includes video, surveillance cameras, drones, in-car video, mobile devices as well as cell phone downloads to even complete mirror images of hard drives—potentially terabytes of information.

Choosing the right storage solution requires a clear understanding of the costs associated with long-term storage, how quickly a particular police department will need access to evidentiary support, the product life cycle, and legislative storage requirements.

Because of the diversity of digital data collected, police departments must build a data platform that can collect, store and manage individual pools of data. Not addressing the different video storage needs holistically can lead to big challenges for agencies down the line, and create an overwhelming issue for the agency to manage its data long-term.   More 

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com:  Thank you for joining us again today Ken at this momentous time in the history of Dell EMC. Before drilling down a bit into all that’s new…CONGRATULATIONS on your appointment as General Manager, Surveillance and Security!  One will read at Dell EMC, “To address the changing surveillance data needs of organizations all over the world, Dell EMC is introducing a robust portfolio of surveillance solutions built on a data lake architecture.“  Please give us an overview of the Dell EMC Surveillance Solutions Portfolio.

Ken Mills: Dell EMC is focused on delivering the best in class solutions for the surveillance market in Networking, Compute, Storage, Virtualization, Security, Client and Cloud. We are also focused on building joint solutions with our OEM customers/partners to bring even more value to our end users.

Our customers are truly the future-makers, and we are enabling them to innovate faster, build stronger and scale smarter. Stay tuned for a number of announcements for the surveillance market from Dell EMC and our customers.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Are there product announcements on the horizon from Dell EMC too?

Ken Mills: It is an exciting time to be at Dell EMC right now. Dell Technologies is now #1 In Everything, All in 1 Place and we are bringing this world-class portfolio to the surveillance market.  Never before, have our customers and partners been able to modernize their surveillance infrastructure with an end-to-end portfolio like we have a Dell EMC. We are leveraging the same industry-recognized surveillance lab to expand our validated solutions to include the entire Dell EMC portfolio This is a huge step forward for the industry where for the first time, our customers and partners can purchase with confidence all of their surveillance infrastructure needs from one place - Dell EMC.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Dell EMC market leadership, track record, and brand recognition, in every enterprise vertical, education and the government space, is second to none.  As we head into Q2 and 2H 2017 what are the key target markets for Dell EMC?

Ken Mills: Public Sector continues to be a key vertical for us. With the demand in public safety at an all time high, the need for cost effective and proven solutions has never been greater. We are seeing strong demand for our Public Safety Data Lake solution built on Isilon. Customers are pushing back on closed single vendor solutions are looking for reliable open platforms for evidence management whether they are deploying on premises or in the cloud. Dell EMC is focused on building solutions that allow our customers choice in how they manage their evidence data. We are also seeing strong demand in airports across the world as airports look to modernize their infrastructure. We are also going to continue to bring the Dell EMC value to our enterprise and commercial customers across the globe.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Can we talk for a moment about the journey, the step-by-step, that Dell EMC customers take with you from initial assessment through implementation?

Ken Mills: Customers come to Dell EMC for a number of reasons, but the most common reasons are:

1. They are expanding their existing surveillance system and need to modernize their infrastructure
2. They are looking to build a Public Safety Data Lake for all their evidence and not just their body worn video.
3. They want an open platform based on industry leading technology from a trusted vendor like Dell EMC.

Once our team understands the use case and application vendor that our customer wants to deploy, we can better guide the customer on how to choose the right architecture and to size the surveillance infrastructure for best balance of performance and reliability. We spend on average 6 months validating evidence and surveillance applications on Dell EMC infrastructure. Often times we have to work with the vendor engineers to help optimize the joint solution to work best on the Dell EMC infrastructure. We provide this test and sizing data free on our website dellemc.com/surveillance under ‘partner validations’. Customers can then size their environment properly ensuring they do not lose data in normal or recovery operations. At this point, we work with the customer to choose the best implementation partner to help them deploy their new modern surveillance infrastructure.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: The law enforcement market is especially challenging and we couldn’t agree more with this White Paper: Video Surveillance Storage, Understanding the Body Camera Video Surveillance Storage Considerations, “With increasing volumes of video evidence, law enforcement agencies need to understand the tradeoffs involved in making decisions that can resonate over many years. It is apparent that law enforcement agencies are now storing more video evidence from body cams, drones, in-car video cameras, and crime scenes. With so much video data being created, it has become a challenge to understand how best to address the needs of law enforcement, comply with legal requirements, and address costs and convenience at the same time.” Care to elaborate?

Ken Mills: This topic has become one of the most common conversations I have in any given week. There is such a rush to solve the problem of getting body worn video in the hands of our police officers that agencies are not often considering the long-term impact of their decisions. I talk to a couple customers every week who have gone down this road and realized they made a mistake opting for the easy button and getting locked in to an expensive competitive solution that only addresses their body worn video needs. Dell EMC has a better answer for our customers. Dell EMC can provide an open platform for all their evidence needs based on a Public Safety Data Lake. Customers can store their data on premises or in an open cloud. This reduces the cost of evidence storage long term and gives the customer total control of their data.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Dell EMC recently announced a Historic New Integrated Partner Program. Your thoughts on this Ken and any other key partnerships you care to mention?

Ken Mills: We know that our partners – especially in the OEM space – are driving some of the most innovative ideas in this industry, and we are totally invested in their success. Dell EMC is building the best partner program and community in the industry which gives us a huge advantage over competitors. We are making it easier for partners to do business with us and the response has been outstanding. Our channel is a key reason why we are # 1 in Everything, All in 1 Place.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Dell EMC World is right around the corner, May 8-11 in Las Vegas. May we have a preview of what attendees will see, hear and learn this year? (note to our readers…mark your calendar and REGISTER HERE)

Ken Mills: Dell EMC World is an amazing event and a great opportunity for our customers to hear about what is happening at Dell EMC. This year customers interested in surveillance will have 2 different breakout sessions to choose from that will provide a better view on how we see the surveillance industry and what are planning for the future. Customers and partners can also visit the solution pavilion to see demos from partners like Axis and get a hands on experience with the Dell EMC surveillance portfolio. 

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Can we have a quick tour of the online resources that are available for the Dell community,Dell EMC community, and the surveillance, security, storage communities at large?

Ken Mills:  The best places to go for all things Dell EMC surveillance is our public facing webpage at www.dellemc.com/surveillance  or our blog site https://vigilareblog.emc.com/

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Thanks again for joining us today, Ken. Any other subjects you’d like to talk about?

Ken Mills: Dell EMC is committed to the Surveillance Industry and we are confident that we have the best and most proven end-to-end portfolio for the surveillance market. I welcome feedback from your readers and would like to hear more about the challenges they are facing in their day-to-day operations via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kemills