Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Deploying 5.5PB DDN SFA Storage

With its zero-tolerance toward crime, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has deployed a video surveillance and storage archive system with 5.5PB of DataDirect Networks, Inc. (DDN) SFA storage.

As the nation’s third largest Sheriff’s office, Maricopa County, which is located in Airizona and encompasses the Phoenix metropolitan area, has between 7,500 to 10,000 inmates in its jail system across six facilities where the ability to maintain the highest levels of visibility across the County’s jail system to ensure the security and safety of inmates, correctional officers and staff is paramount.

Faced with an aging tape-based storage system, ongoing performance issues and a huge influx of data as a result of industry-wide adoption of HD digital SLR, Maricopa County teamed with Sierra Detention Systems to overhaul its physical security platform and keep pace with the scale, performance and density demands of its storage-intensive environment.

By combining high density and efficiency with massive capacity capabilities, DDN’s SFA storage platform is suitable for deployments that require secure archiving and rapid access to big data such as IP CCTV, sensor and video surveillance systems. With DDN storage for the real-time data capture and video archive for more than 3,000 HD surveillance cameras, Maricopa County now captures and records 24/7 activity across all six sites concurrently, achieving high data availability, simplified storage administration and the ability to scale and manage as many as 30PB of footage.

With DDN’s storage, Maricopa County has created a video archive that is 10 times faster than its predecessor, enabling law enforcement to capture thousands of incidents annually and retrieve up to 60 days of HD footage ins. previously, it could take up to 60 days to retrieve a month’s worth of data from the tape-based archive, which was unacceptably slow and error prone.

With its upgraded jail-security system, Maricopa County has improved crime detection and intervention to reduce the cost of litigation and save taxpayers’ dollars. Headed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known as America’s Toughest Sheriff, according to Maricopa County, the Sherriff’s office has achieved 100% visibility across its county-wide jail system to deter crime and lead the way in complying with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

DDN’s performance and reliability elevates jail security and safety

• Maricopa County ensures the highest levels of storage performance and scalability, capturing real-time data from thousands of cameras at 15 frames per second and then archiving the data-intensive footage for up to 60 days.
• Performance ensures fast data capture and retrieval, enabling the Sheriff’s Office to keep pace with ever-increasing data workflow requirements.
• Industry reliability, including RAID-6 active/active storage controllers and DDN DirectProtect real-time error detection and correction for reducing the number and the performance impact of drive rebuilds, and stringent redundancy to drive improved ROI.
• Ease of use and deployment of DDN storage reduced the need for cross-training, which enabled reallocation of funds to direct law enforcement efforts to benefit citizens.
• Integration with Sierra Detention Systems’ security controls system, featuring Genetec’s unified IP security system and Bosch HD cameras, helped accelerate overall system deployment.

Lt. Brandon Jones, public information officer, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, said: “By improving our video surveillance system, we can take crime detection and intervention to the next level. This will enable the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to reduce the costs of litigation, which ultimately saves significant taxpayer dollars.“

“The new system is 10 times faster, even though the amount of data the Sheriff’s Office now captures and archives has increased. As a result, we expect to double our recording capacity to exceed 2,500 incidents each year.“

“Maricopa County is very big on leading the way to keep our facilities the safest and most secure – both from a technological and administrative perspective. Having 100% coverage of our facilities gives more exposure of images to the tower control officers and facilitators, which is critical to running a crime-free environment.“

Paul Sims, CTO, Sierra Detention Systems, said: “DDN’s approach to storage is very similar to how Sierra Detention Systems approaches security and surveillance. It’s nice to come at it with the same focus on innovation and redundancy, which has enabled us to build an infrastructure that balances Maricopa County’s stringent security demands with their budgetary requirements.“

“An officer pulled 12 hours of full HD video in 17 minutes, which is astronomically fast. Normally, it would take at least three hours to pull that much footage.“

“With any storage system, you measure ROI based on how often you have to replace drives and we saw a better return with DDN. Additionally, the ability to go back two months in surveillance history and retrieve footage ins is a powerful testimony to the benefits of the technology.“

Case study