| Citizens First bank decided to replace its DVRs with March Networks 4000 Series units at all of its locations |
Florida Bank upgrades to March Networks DVRs when originally acquired system falls short of expectations
When management at Citizens First Bank in The Villages, Florida, decided to look for a new video surveillance solution, senior computer technician Mac Anderson and VP Bookkeeping and Security Officer Bobby Sullivan booted up their computers and began searching the World Wide Web.
The bank had recently acquired DVR systems for its seven branches in Florida's fastest growing retirement community, but was unhappy with their performance and eager to research its options. Impressed with what they learned about March Networks and its track record with some of the largest banks in the U.S., Mexico and Australia, they fired off an email requesting more information.
March NetworksTM Certified Solution Provider Benham Security, which serves a local, national and international customer base from three branches along Florida's Atlantic coast, met with Citizens First management and provided the bank with a trial unit for a hands-on evaluation.
After several months of testing, Citizens First decided to replace its DVRs with March Networks 4000 Series units at all of its locations.
"Its robust construction, reliability and increased storage capacity were some of the factors that influenced our decision," says Mac Anderson, Senior Computer Technician.
The Linux operating system embedded in flash memory and March Networks' unique docking station design that allows users to service a unit without having to disassemble all of the cable inputs were also strong selling points.
"If a hard-drive failed on our previous DVRs, we had a serious problem," says Anderson. "It would crash and we had to send it back." With the March Networks system, you simply replace the hard-drive and you're up and running again in minutes.
Citizens First chose to configure its March Networks DVRs with four 400 GB hard drives for a total of 1.6 TB of onboard storage. Two of the drives are mirrored to reduce the risk of data loss, leaving the bank with 800 GB for archived video.
"The video quality is great and we haven't had any problems at all" |
"We have quite a few months of video for each branch, but we'd like to take our history out further, so we are looking at going with an external redundant storage solution to give us that extra research capability," says Anderson Video recording at Citizens First branches is used primarily to investigate claims related to the fraudulent use of bank cards.
"We can pull up the video from an ATM based on the time and date of a transaction and see who was using the card." Anderson also likes the system's management tools and the health monitoring functionality.
"I can actually look at how much disk space has been used," he notes. "With our previous system, there was no way to see how much space was available. So we can monitor that much more effectively."
Anderson, based at the bank's operations center, uses the March Networks Configuration Tool to set camera recording rates, manage user privileges and define video transmission and storage parameters.
Selected bank personnel use the March Networks DVR Viewer to access video, while local law enforcement authorities use the March Networks DVR Player to view video clips supplied by the bank on CDs.
"We're very happy with our March Networks systems," says Anderson. "The video quality is great and we haven't had any problems at all." Several additional DVRs will be added to the system next year to keep pace with the bank's expanding branch network.