Your data center may be armed to the virtual gills against cyberattacks, hackers and other online threats – but don’t forget about the potential hazards lurking in the real world. Having a surveillance camera system in place is a must against on-site, physical threats, but even that may not be enough if there are weaknesses in your system.
Here are five signs your video surveillance system needs an upgrade.
- You are wasting time reviewing footage.
- You are at the mercy of traditional electricity and Wi-Fi.
- Suspicious behavioral patterns pass you by.
- You’re literally stuck with fixed-view cameras.
- Your system’s cameras and components don’t play well together.
You are wasting time reviewing footage.
Sifting through hours of video footage actually takes, well, hours.
Let’s say you knew a data center intrusion happened somewhere between 6 a.m. and noon, and you had a good idea of who may be behind it. An outdated data center video surveillance system would make you sit and watch six hours of footage in the hopes of catching the perpetrator on tape.
Even if you sped up the playback, your data center video monitoring is still going to involve hours of sitting and watching, watching and sitting. That’s wasted time during which you could be doing something more useful, not to mention the chances of missing the frame you needed if you happened to blink or yawn during playback.
The best modern data center security and surveillance systems are equipped with features that can help you sift through hours of footage in minutes, pinpointing exactly who or what you’re looking for.
Quick target search is a feature that lets you select specific faces, areas of the data center or other targets that are automatically brought to your attention during playback.
If you’re surveilling parking lots or other outdoor areas, ANPR is another must-have feature. Officially known as automatic number plate recognition, ANPR scans and recognizes license plates – like those of disgruntled ex-employees or other potentially harmful individuals with unscrupulous motives.
You are at the mercy of traditional power sources.
If your power or Wi-Fi goes out, your data center surveillance system goes out right along with it.
While natural disasters in Pennsylvania don’t typically include hurricanes or earthquakes, things like tornadoes and heavy thunderstorms can still wreak havoc on local electrical and digital connections. And there’s also the underlying threat of Wi-Fi and electricity being purposely cut off by whatever malicious forces may be at play.
Many modern data center video surveillance systems are equipped with two features that ensure your system remains up and running even if the traditional means of powering it doesn’t. Remote solar power can take care of the need for electricity, even serving as a full-time solution with no electrical wires required.
Many modern surveillance cameras also offer a long-range wireless option. This means your cameras need not be connected to or rely upon any electrical wiring to keep functioning.
Suspicious behavioral patterns pass you by.
You’re not alerted to patterns of suspicious behaviors.
You’ve heard that hindsight is 20/20, but that pithy little saying doesn’t help fix a disaster that has already happened. Perhaps if you knew a certain group of employees were hanging around the same data center area for weeks before a big breach occurred, you may have been able to take some type of preventative action.
Yet the only way you may have known about their suspicious behavior is if you happened to be reviewing or monitoring footage when the behavior was occurring.
Change that by ensuring your system is equipped with features that make suspicious behaviors more obvious. Modern data center security systems have such features, and they include:
- Thermal capabilities
- Heat mapping
- Queue detection
Thermal capabilities, also called infrared capabilities, refer to a camera’s ability to detect heat and capture thermal imagery. The night vision function of thermal cameras allows them to work in the dark, making them the perfect pick for overnight surveillance of dark areas. In addition to detecting heat emanating from would-be intruders or other living beings in the vicinity, they can also detect the overheating of data center components.
Heat mapping is a feature that gives you a visual representation of activity through the use of color. Reds generally indicate areas of high activity while blues are used to showcase low-activity areas. The ability to see areas of high activity at a glance can help you respond to potential threats or pinpoint where you may want to install additional cameras.
Queue detection is ideal for letting you know when a line begins to form in a specific area. Often used in retail establishments for cash register lines and for traffic clog-ups on bridges or in tunnels, queue detection could also be useful to see congestion throughout your data center. Even if it’s not suspicious, congestion forming in any high-security area is typically something you want to avoid.
You’re literally stuck with fixed-view cameras.
You have one type of camera across your entire system.
Many data center security systems are comprised of a series of fixed cameras that stay focused on specifically set areas. If every unwanted activity was kind enough to unfold in front of those cameras’ lenses, you’d be fine. But they often don’t.
In fact, those planning nefarious activities are likely to make sure they do it out of any camera’s view. Amend this issue with a surveillance upgrade that uses more than one type of camera.
You can still retain your fixed analog cameras for constantly monitoring very specific areas – like your data center entrances. But you also want to add a more flexible option for the second type of camera, namely a pan-tilt-zoom camera.
PTZ cameras let you pan, tilt and zoom the lens where desired – all from the comfort of your remote viewing station. They are particularly helpful for real-time monitoring of activities you may want to get a closer look at, or to track movements or persons that may appear to be out of the ordinary.
The best Pittsburgh data center security and surveillance systems will incorporate a combination of both types of cameras, giving you flexibility and consistency in a single system.
Your system’s cameras and components don’t play well together.
You essentially have multiple mini-systems instead of a single, all-in-one solution.
As your company grew, your data center probably grew along with it. That could have also meant that your security and surveillance cameras were added or expanded as needed on a case-by-case basis without much thought.
You could now be left with a confusing, tedious, cobbled-together mess instead of a singular, streamlined whole. Data center owners and managers have enough on their plate. Playing around with a disjointed surveillance system need not be one of them.
The most efficient option is to ensure all your surveillance components work together as a single, comprehensive solution. A customized, all-in-one video surveillance installation in Pennsylvania would include things like:
- Multi-site integration where all the sites you are surveilling can be monitored and reviewed from a single station
- Cloud-based storage where captured data can be easily stored, retrieved and organized
- Advanced technologies where all components are on the same page – or at least in the same decade – and they all play well together
The most effective surveillance for data centers involves much more than a few video cameras as part of a one-size-fits-all solution. Your data is precious and your data center unique, which means it deserves a fortified security and surveillance solution tailored to your exact needs. To learn more about custom surveillance for businesses, contact 2 Krew Security and Surveillance.
