Hitachi Video Management Converged Platform

Hitachi Insight Group, which is responsible for driving Hitachi Ltd.‘s global unified IoT business and go-to-market strategy, introduced three new Hitachi Video Management Platform (VMP) models designed to aggressively move the company into the video security and monitoring market-a more than $6 billion total available market opportunity based on recent estimates from an independent research firm.

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Video Management Platform Architecture

The VMP configurations combine virtualized compute and storage and are delivered as an integrated appliances. These new models are optimized for enterprise video security and monitoring environments and support video analytics.

Hitachi also announced that it is growing its partner ecosystem and expanding its strategic alliances with digital video management system (DVMS) industry leaders Milestone systems A/S and On-Net Surveillance Systems, Inc. (OnSSI) to develop and deliver joint solutions that offer increased levels of enterprise security, workplace safety, and industrial and operational efficiencies.

Video management systems provide a foundation for both physical and digital information assets that support a holistic security program and regulatory compliance in enterprise and institutional security environments.

Video monitoring, which has traditionally supported only physical security, is now being used to support new applications, such as improving traffic congestion, increasing industrial and operational efficiencies and supporting workplace safety.

These applications are driving a flood of ‘big video’ data that requires enterprise storage, fast data recall, expanded data security and little-to-no degradation to effectively support real-time monitoring and analysis.

Although most enterprise customers are looking to embrace digitalization to transform their businesses, many existing video storage and monitoring solutions still rely on legacy technologies and analog video formats that cannot fully capitalize on IoT or support analytics and advanced technologies. VMP is designed to address this gap.

“Video monitoring and security are key areas where digitalization can offer profound benefits. However, the migration to digital video solutions has been slow, due in large part to the limitations of existing products and a reliance on legacy technologies and analog video formats. With its VMP, Hitachi is addressing a major gap in the video compute and storage market that has prevented physical security solutions from evolving to fully embrace digital transformation and IoT,” said Pierre Bourgeix, VP at consulting firm, SecureState LLC. “The Hitachi VMP segments, stores, scales and protects video data to mitigate and manage security threats consistently and with clarity. Hitachi VMP bridges the digital and physical divide in enterprise environments to help security, IT and business operations teams better utilize video technologies to reduce risk, increase security and workplace safety, and drive greater operational and organizational efficiencies.”

VMP has been tested and certified compatible by its partners to support the XProtect VMS software from Milestone Systems, and the Ocularis 5 VMS software from OnSSI. Hitachi is collaborating with both companies to co-develop solutions, accelerate Gand expand opportunities in the growing video security and monitoring market.

“Milestone’s robust open IP video management software together with the simplicity and reliability of Hitachi’s VMP will help to pave the way for smarter, safer cities, industries and businesses of the future,” said Reinier Tuinzing, strategic alliances manager, Americas, Milestone. “Hitachi VMP has successfully completed the Milestone Certified Solution Program and passed all required certifications for operating with Milestone XProtect VMS software. We’re glad to be teaming with Hitachi to develop high-reliability video monitoring and security solutions that will enable our mutual government, enterprise and industrial customers to fully capitalize on their video data, manage risks, protect people and assets, optimize processes and reduce costs.”

“We see tremendous opportunity for OnSSI and Hitachi to gain prospects and take share in a marketplace ripe for next-generation video management solutions,” said Mulli Diamant, VP of international business development, OnSSI. “During VMP’s certification testing, we were impressed with how well its virtual foundation performed in supporting a thousand-camera system. We’re pleased to be working with Hitachi to bring to market the unique high-efficiency recording engine of our Ocularis 5 VMS with the Hitachi VMP to improve physical and information security, and drive new levels of operational capabilities for our mutual customers.”

VMP Product Specifications
It is built on commercial technologies from the Hitachi Group family of companies, including HDS Virtual Storage Platform (VSP). Similar to Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP), VMP combines storage, network and compute technologies delivered as an integrated converged platform optimized for virtualized environments. It was architected and built for video security and monitoring deployments to provide scalability, performance and support a variety of enterprise applications, including video analytics. VMP is now available in three configurations to support medium to large enterprise security environments ranging from 150 to 10,000 or more cameras: the VMP 150, VMP 500 and VMP 1000.

Key benefits include:

• HA: Many existing video management platforms are reported to have data loss rates of 20% or higher. VMP delivers redundant, highly available storage to ensure little-to-no data loss and minimize video degradation.
• Scale Easily: VMP is a converged platform that provides built-in virtualization and a scale-up architecture designed to support increased need for video storage capacity and share integrated physical resources like compute and analytics out of the box.
• Reduce Risk of Data Loss: Compliance demands in government and regulated industries require security solutions that mitigate risk from both existing and potential security threats. VMP offers a higher level of protection by providing customers with an option to maintain video and information assets in a segmented environment to reduce the challenges of data protection and complement risk-based security and compliance processes.
• Pre-validated: Hitachi developed and tested VMP for compatibility with VMS software to ensure customers and system integrators can deploy it with confidence.

“Our customers want to do more with their video assets than is possible with existing video management platforms or legacy technologies like CCTVs,” said Mark Jules, VP, public safety and smart city solutions at Hitachi Insight Group. “We designed Hitachi VMP to take their video security deployments to the next level. Together with our world-class channel and alliance partners, Hitachi is supporting video analytics and other advanced technologies that will future-proof their security environments and help them fully capitalize on digital video and IoT. We’re pleased to be working with Milestone, OnSSI and other industry leaders to deliver the next-generation solutions that will propel our cust,rs’ businesses forward.”

Hitachi VMP is available in North America, the UK and all APAC countries, excluding Japan, through Hitachi and select partners. The company will also expand availability to France, Germany and other EMEA markets this year.