As data volumes rise, business dashboard adoption has skyrocketed. More and more companies rely on dashboards to make sense of their data and make strategic business decisions. The goal? Turn mountains of data into actionable insights.
The security industry is no different. With the rapid growth of IP-based security devices, organizations are challenged to manage detailed device information and analyze heuristic network traffic in order to identify system issues in real-time. Without a dashboard solution that integrates the entire environment and disparate systems understanding system health is next to impossible.
Security teams need a monitoring solution that scans the security network for status, activity, and performance of every IP-based security device. Better yet is a dashboard solution that aggregates intelligence from all devices regardless of manufacturer, and displays the health and condition of each using color-coded charts. What’s more, by making system health visible in real-time and providing automated alerts, security system dashboard solutions speed the path to resolution for any issue.
So, what makes a great security system dashboard?
A Screenshot of the Vunetrix Interface
A Complete Picture
The key to an effective dashboard is the ability to integrate all of your devices and services into a single-view. It is also important to establish clear visual cues and charts based on real-time system health. At a minimum green should indicate healthy devices and services, yellow/orange indicates a potential problem on the horizon, and red means there’s a critical issue, act now.
Customized Display
With dashboards, one size does not fit all. Every company is unique and has different environments, systems, processes, safety and compliance requirements, and staffing models. The best dashboard will allow you to customize it for your organizations specific needs.
Going Beyond the Screen
Spotting problems when you are not looking at the dashboard is key for any organization. Incident identification allows your Security team the opportunity to respond before inventory loss or diversion, unauthorized access or breach of your environment, or data tampering. A great dashboard will allow you to set up intelligent email and/or SMS alerts. Choosing a solution that allows for customized emails for every type of alert and allows you to send them by priority and/or job function is a best practice.
Why Vunetrix?
Vunetrix is a purpose-built dashboard solution for the security industry. Our always on technology, alerts Security professionals in real-time of any system breaches, snags, or failures that could give intruders or unauthorized individuals time to break in and threaten your company’s security and compliance. Our out-of-the-box software is best in class and the number one choice for consultants, integrators, and organizations of all industries and sizes.
Common Alerts Requested by Vunetrix Customers
Camera Not Recording
Vunetrix Network Monitor (VNM) solves this challenge by knowing the baseline ‘normal’ data flow for each camera. If normally during a specific time of day the camera would be producing data and now there is no significant data, it is likely the camera has been blocked or corrupted, and VNM will alert.
Camera Configuration Issues
VNM solves this challenge in the same way. A higher than expected band-width reading or data flow level can be indicative of a misconfigured camera. VNM will send an alert. This type of information would normally not be visible to video system users.
Ah…Vunetrix makes the invisible, visible.
CPU Performance
VNM can determine an instant such as, today we are seeing 80% utilization of the CPU where normally we would see 20%. When this occurs, VNM will alert.
Available Memory
VNM identifies when low-memory is available on a server endangering application performance. The result can be lost video scenarios, data loss, failed applications, or a complete system crash. VNM will alert.
Hard Drive Health
VNM identifies when hard drives reach unacceptable temperatures, are low on capacity, or are in pre-failure state and need to be replaced. VNM will alert.
Battery Life
VNM identifies when the available UPS back-up battery power falls below a pre-configured target level. VNM will alert.
Vunetrix Allows for Proactive Management of Your Security System
One major benefit to using VNM is the ability to proactively manage the health of each device over its life cycle. In the past, organizations had to guess how healthy each device was based on manufacturer guidelines. With VNM, you know. The tool will alert you to health changes and notify you often before a device fails.
Common notifications
Life remaining on a hard drive
Backup power supply levels
Disk and hard drive temperatures
Number of spare sectors left on a hard drive
Re-write errors
NVR CPU jump
Vunetrix Reporting
Security system health reports are an integral tool in helping organizations manage their security infrastructure over its entire life cycle. Vunetrix complies device data that can be customized into reports that can then be generated on demand as well as daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly. Here are some of the most requested reports by Vunetrix customers.
Device and Service Uptime/Availability
Vunetrix can report uptime every 60 seconds to prove cameras and/or servers are online and sending/receiving data.
Hard Drive Status
Vunetrix can report the health of a hard drive and notify if and when the hard drive needs to be replaced before it fails.
Device and Service Downtime
Vunetrix can report how often security devices and/or services are down. This is a good report for determining when a camera ought to be replaced or a video service evaluated.
Vunetrix and Compliance Mandates
Security system compliance is a hot button for most regulated industries today. Security teams can be required to report security system breaches to regulatory agencies within one hour of an incident. Here are the most common uptime and availability reports requested by our customers and mandated by regulators.
Device and Service Uptime
Vunetrix can report uptime every 60 seconds to prove cameras and/or servers are online and sending/receiving data.
Device Last Started
This report shows when a device was last started. This proves the device is on, but not necessarily sending data.
Services Running
This report shows NVR or video services have been running.
*Vunetrix has the ability to send alerts directly to a central station for instant alerts to a company or regulatory agency.
If you have questions about a monitoring dashboard solution for your organization, we invite you to give the team at Vunetrix a call. We offer free consultations and 30-day trials.
To learn more about Vunetrix download our White Paper, “Addressing the Challenges and Complexities of Physical Security Networks“, or one of our eBooks “Eliminating Lost Video Scenarios” or “The Key to Barricading Assets from Break-Ins.“