Like all universities, the police department and administrators of Foothill-DeAnza Community College District are constantly looking for ways to provide a safer environment for students, faculty and staff. 

Law enforcement is not what comes to mind when most people think of a thriving college campus. But preventive security measures are essential to the welfare of students and staff at any school today. In the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, located in Californias bustling Silicon Valley, a full service police department takes responsibility for the safety of 44,000 students and hundreds of faculty and staff across two large campuses covering more than 234 acres, 61 buildings and 116 classrooms.

Recent tragedies like those at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech have heightened the need for state-of-the-art communications and security systems that enable security forces to maximize police presence without violating the rights of those in the community or lessening the college experience. Foothill-DeAnza Police Chief Ron Levine was acutely aware of these challenges as he began looking for a better way to protect the campus.

As the process of upgrading campus security began, Chief Levine had three clear goals:

To create a state-of-the-art digital surveillance system across both campuses; to unify the Foothill-DeAnza surveillance system so all analog CCTV systems in individual buildings could be accessed from a central location instantaneously and to protect critical surveillance assets.

Previously, the Foothill-DeAnza surveillance system was comprised of several stand-alone CCTV systems across two campuses, meaning administrators in each area could view what was happening on the cameras, but police personnel in other buildings could not. This design impaired communication between police forces and posed potential danger to first responders  if there was criminal activity, police could only view events in the actual building in which the crime was taking place. Creating a hybrid system by combining the older CCTV technology with a mix of digital IP based and analog cameras into one centralized system meant a safer working environment for police and students.

To accomplish these goals, Chief Levine and his team decided on a Hitachi technology platform that would leverage highly reliable storage hardware and software to better campus security, providing for a better all-around college experience for the Foothill-DeAnza community. 

Upgrading Foothill-DeAnza campus security meant altering the way security camera data was captured and stored. Under the old system, each camera recorded and stored information at individual locations, as opposed to centralizing the data on one main server. The new progressive video solution runs both standard video cameras and the digital surveillance equipment that relies on IP-based network connections for streaming video. It is the Chiefs goal to have a consistent policy for managing all of the surveillance assets for as long as they might need to be retained.

In order for the new security measures to function efficiently, thus ensuring safety of the students, Levine needed to implement a storage solution that would support the video surveillance program and accommodate for future data growth. To do this, Levine needed to find storage system that was both highly scalable and reliable, in order to guarantee the safety and accessibility of the video data from the campus. 

Scalability was critical to supporting surveillance data for the long term. Levine expected the surveillance assets to require up to 1TB in the immediate future, with as much as 8TB to support all the active cameras over time.

In addition to accommodating massive amounts of data, Levine was also focused on protecting it. Surveillance footage of any campus crime will become evidence in a court of law and therefore must be stored indefinitely.

 Redundancy is essential to a new storage solution because we cannot risk any disk failure whatsoever, says Levine. Anything we record has the potential to be evidence in court, so we want to be able to retain data for as long as we can. Finding a storage solution that would be extremely reliable and scalable was critical. 

In addition, Levine needed to accommodate a tight budget. Foothill-DeAnza implemented the Hitachi Simple Modular Storage 100 and Symantec Backup Exec 12 to help manage its video surveillance data. Designed as a highly reliable solution for small and midsized businesses, Hitachi Simple Modular Storage offers enterprise-class storage features and RAID-6 data protection with outstanding performance and reasonable cost. 

Yes

Yes

The implementation of the new storage system at Foothill-DeAnza has significantly benefited not only the police department, but also the IT staff, faculty, and students that depend on it daily. 

Hitachi Simple Modular Storage provides the growing Foothill-DeAnza college district with a secure, intuitive storage system that cost-effectively promotes data protection without complexity or time-consuming efforts. Symantec's Backup Exec 12 continues the ease-of-use paradigm for the department's backup and restore requirements. The combination of Hitachi storage and Symantec's Backup Exec 12 software delivers enterprise-class features at a price point that is appropriate for the department's budget.

Furthermore, the technology implementation allows the officers to focus on keeping all visitors to the campus safe  instead of managing their storage system. 

With very little training required, our non-technical staff is able to manage and maintain the storage system in house, without worry. One of the things fresh in our minds today is the series of violent, tragic events happening across some college campuses. We take our responsibility to protect everyone who comes onto our campuses very seriously. Knowing we have a reliable storage solution in place gives us great peace of mind, Levine says.

N/A

For Foothill-DeAnza, the most exceptional aspects of the new security implementation are the simplicity of management and the reliability of a system that guarantees the safety and accessibility of important data.  

Installing the new program would not come at the cost of losing valuable information. The RAID 6 platform for non-disruptive operations also guaranteeing the safety and accessibility of data that was such a top priority for Levine. 

When it comes to potential evidence, data loss is just not a viable option. The reliability of Hitachi Simple Modular Storage with RAID-6 is a huge win for us. This system comes with dual parity, which means that even if any two drives were to fail at the same time, we still wont lose data. These are the kind of assurances we like, Levine says. 

Like any educational institution funding is always a significant problem. Pricing was a key factor to be considered by Levines team, and was one they thought would be very limiting at the beginning of their search.

As one of the first colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area to incorporate both analog and digital surveillance systems and centralize their data capture and storage process  Foothill-DeAnza needed to make a strong business case for the innovative technology. 

The needs were clear: in order to continue to provide the state-of-the-art digital surveillance that was essential to the security program, the police department would need to upgrade to a more reliable solution that offered the ability to grow with the needs of the department. Hitachis Simple Modular Storage platform, coupled with Symantecs Backup 12, would provide the department with an easy to use, scalable solution  that fit within their budget.

Encouraged by the promise of the technology, and the benefit it would provide for students and staff alike, the police department was allocated the necessary funding to implement the new system. 

N/A

Exceeded

With the implementation of the Hitachi Simple Modular Storage system, Foothill-DeAnza has become a model for similar organizations. From simple IT maintenance by a non-IT staff to the streamlining of standard campus security measures, daily functions at Foothill-DeAnza are faster, more reliable and allow for improved and expanded communication between officers. 

In addition, the user ease and affordable price point of the Hitachi Simple Modular Storage system is paving the way for future system expansions and technology upgrades on the Foothill-DeAnza campus. 

For example, Levine and his team are looking into installing cameras in more locations that are vital for school security. They are also looking into installing mobile video into officer patrol cars. This would enable an officer to pull up camera vantage points in real-time as they are responding to the call  allowing them to allocate the correct amount of personnel and accurately evaluate the level of danger the threat poses to the team.

Moving forward, Levine says Hitachi Simple Modular Storage will enable future state-of-the-art security upgrades. It is Levines goal to procure hand-held devices for all police team members. Similar to the mobile video in patrol cars, these portable devices would allow video to directly link to each officer so they can view it en route to a call. Even entering a building where theres a security threat, officers can have direct access to the surveillance camera and adequately access the situation.

For Levine, it was essential that the installed solution had the ability to be maintained by the non-technical staff in the police department, rather than having to rely on the college IT staff. 

Hitachi Simple Modular Storage 100 enables simple installation and includes configuration wizards and easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) storage management software.  Easy to manage and easy to scale, the Hitachi Simple Modular Storage 100 provided Foothill-DeAnza with a simple and reliable solution, with no storage expertise required.