Pivot3, Inc. - Experts & Thought Leaders

Quantum Corporation (Quantum) announced a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of EnCloudEn, an early stage hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) Software Company. This agreement follows Quantum’s recent acquisition of the surveillance business assets of Pivot3, an early pioneer of hyper-converged infrastructure for video surveillance workloads. EnCloudEn acquisition The EnCloudEn acquisition will enable Quantum to expand the addressable market for the company’s video surveillance portfolio, offering customers a solution, using their server hardware of choice, with a flexible subscription-based software model. EnCloudEn’s approach to simplicity and automation integrates tightly with Quantum’s strategy to offer customers intuitive end-to-end solutions for the video data lifecycle. “The recent acquisition of Pivot3’s surveillance business assets brought a customer-proven solution, an established customer base, an established go-to-market, and an experienced team for the mission-critical video surveillance and physical security market.” said Jamie Lerner, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Quantum Corporation. Open and flexible HCI software stack The addition of EnCloudEn technology brings an open and flexible HCI software stack" Jamie Lerner adds, “The addition of EnCloudEn technology brings an open and flexible HCI software stack that strengthens our position in the video surveillance and physical security market. We can now extend HCI solutions to a broader set of customers, accelerate our development roadmap for HCI-based solutions and employ a subscription-based software purchasing model, which is fast becoming the way businesses want to procure and manage their software investments.” EnCloudEn was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company built an HCI software stack that delivers software-defined compute, storage and networking, in one virtualised platform, and is used by large banks, engineering companies, and pharmaceutical industries in India. EnCloudEn HCI software The EnCloudEn HCI software is hardware-agnostic, easy to manage, and simple to purchase in a pay-as-you-go model. EnCloudEn's feature-rich, hyper-converged platform allows surveillance customers to not just store video data, but run the video management system (VMS), access control, card readers, analytics, and other HCI workloads on the same platform, while bundling in the best enterprise data centre security features. Some key benefits of EnCloudEn’s software platform include: Ability to support a wide range of x86 server hardware from systems vendors, such as Dell, Lenovo, HP, Cisco, IBM, Supermicro, and much more, Software-defined hybrid storage pooling that can handle mixed storage media (HDD, SSD, etc.) and differing system capacities, including the incorporation of large SANs Feature-rich hyper-converged private cloud platform with policy-driven resource orchestration Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) through the strategic use of open source, including a built-in KVM based hypervisor for ease of deployment and management Advanced m+k erasure coding across all nodes for extreme resiliency Automatic cache tiering for high-performance use cases A whole set of storage data services, such as in-line compression, de-duplication, snapshots and quality of service policies on workloads Quantum global engineering facility in India It also establishes a new Quantum global engineering facility in India This technology acquisition adds key technical talent with expertise in hyper-converged infrastructure, cloud operations and enterprise sales, along with several Red Hat certified engineers. It also establishes a new Quantum global engineering facility in India, as the company expands into more addressable markets, including India and the rest of Asia. “When Quantum acquired the Pivot3 surveillance business assets, the acquisition expanded our ability to address physical security projects of every size and scope and manage the video surveillance data lifecycle from initial capture through expiration,” said Curt Wittich, Vice President of Sales - Strategic Markets at Quantum Corporation. Asset acquisition Curt Wittich adds, “This message has been resonating with customers and partners, and the EnCloudEn technology allows us to further expand on that strategy in every way.” The asset acquisition is expected to close later this quarter and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Quantum Corporation announces an agreement to acquire the video surveillance portfolio and assets of Pivot3, a pioneer in hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and a provider of intelligent software solutions for the security and surveillance markets. The acquisition brings a diverse portfolio of video surveillance appliances, network video recorders (NVRs), and management applications along with a scale-out hyperconverged software platform, which going forward will all be offered under the Quantum VS-Series product portfolio. Video surveillance market Together with Quantum’s current line of NVR servers, the StorNext™ File System, and ActiveScale™ object storage, the Pivot3 additions round out a comprehensive surveillance and security portfolio, spanning small to multi-petabyte deployments. The Pivot3 additions round out a comprehensive surveillance and security portfolio “Surveillance cameras are the biggest data generator on the planet, and Pivot3 has established themselves as one of the leaders in this space by pioneering the use of hyperconverged software for surveillance recording,” says Jamie Lerner, Chairman and CEO. “This acquisition represents another key step in Quantum’s transformation, solidifying the company as a serious player in the multi-billion-dollar video surveillance market, expanding our global customer base, sales channels, and technical expertise specific to this industry.” Video surveillance portfolio Highlights of the acquisition: Transaction purchase price totals approximately $8.9 million in cash and stock. Acquisition projected to be slightly accretive to EBITDA through remainder of Fiscal 2022. Expands video surveillance portfolio with hardware and software offerings that will be offered under the Quantum VS-Series portfolio. Builds on an established reputation for quality, world class services and support and a mature supply chain in the video surveillance market. Brings core intellectual property around distributed storage, data placement, erasure coding, and storage quality of service. Expands global customer base with over 500 new surveillance customers with some of the most demanding mission critical deployments in the world including airports, mass transit, casinos, education, and smart cities. Adds key employees to engineering, product and sales organisations with deep expertise in video surveillance solutions. Receiving excellent service Lerner added: “We are excited to welcome Pivot3’s surveillance customers and partners to Quantum. We are committed to making sure that they receive excellent service and support throughout this transition, and we have an innovative and compelling roadmap planned that builds on the proven Pivot3 product line with Quantum’s intellectual property and expertise in video. We are excited to share this roadmap and we will be reaching out in the coming days and weeks, starting this week at ISC West.” We are excited to welcome Pivot3’s surveillance customers and partners to Quantum" “We believe it’s critical to manage the video surveillance data lifecycle from initial capture through expiration, and adding Pivot3 to the Quantum portfolio expands our ability to address security projects of every size and scope,” said Curt Wittich, Vice President of Sales, Strategic Markets, at Quantum. Primary video storage “Surveillance traditionally utilises ‘one-size-fits-all’ products that address only primary video storage, but higher quality cameras and increasing retention requirements demand different solutions to support video at various lifecycle stages. These solutions range from entry-level VMS servers all the way to cloud or tape storage for multi-year, multi-petabyte retention. Quantum’s portfolio covers the entire lifecycle for optimal video placement, accessibility, and cost effectiveness.” The new employees joining Quantum will be under direction of the strategic markets business unit, led by Ross Fujii, General Manager. Sales will be led by Curt Wittich. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and the parties expect to close by July 22, 2021. For those attending ISC West this week, stop by the Quantum booth #11093 to learn more.

Pivot3, the pioneer in intelligent software solutions for simplified security and surveillance infrastructure, announces Solutions Simplified, a new programme for systems integrators and value-added resellers (VARs) to accelerate the design, configuration, quoting and deployment of physical security and industry solutions on Pivot3’s intelligent infrastructure. Pivot3 Solutions Simplified leverages Pivot3’s deep customer experience and expertise in determining the ideal design for enterprise customers, resulting in a more efficient, effective and profitable engagement for systems integrators and VARs, and faster time to value and satisfaction for customers. Necessary network switches The Solutions Simplified program provides validated, pre-engineered Surveillance Series hyperconverged infrastructure systems sized to address the specific customer needs for camera counts, throughput, storage capacity and compute resources. The Pivot3 pre-engineered solutions also specify the necessary network switches to further simply design The program also provides an automated design tool that selects the most appropriate pre-engineered systems for the project requirements, reference architectures and best practices guides for alliance partner technologies and sample industry-specific designs. The Pivot3 pre-engineered solutions also specify the necessary network switches, cabling, management servers and operating system software to further simplify design, quoting and sourcing for systems integrators and VARs. The new online design tool guides systems integrators and VARs through a set of design steps that determine the optimum configurations and produce information for proposal development. Specific security markets Solutions Simplified also provides sample designs built for specific industry use cases, distilling Pivot3’s extensive experience in specific security markets, that systems integrators and VARs can use to produce customer-specific solutions. Systems integrators, VARs and independent software vendors can also collaborate with Pivot3 to create and promote industry-specific deployments. “Today’s enterprise physical security environments require more intelligent infrastructure to support the sophisticated applications developed by our technology partners,” said Ben Bolles, Vice President of product for Pivot3. “This puts more demands on our systems integrators and resellers in terms of the time and expertise required to design the best solution. The Pivot3 Solutions Simplified program helps our partners shorten the process of designing and deploying the right system for their clients.” The new Solutions Simplified Program is available now to Pivot3 channel partners authorised for Pivot3’s Surveillance Series hyperconverged infrastructure offerings.

Video is an enormous wellspring of unstructured data in the enterprise environment. Finding new ways to use video data requires easy access for analysis. Gone are the days when video was recorded just to be played back later. New computer capabilities can analyse video to provide business intelligence and trends, all of which requires that a lot of unstructured data be captured, stored and kept immediately accessible. It's a driving force for companies specialising in video storage such as Quantum, which is focused on storing and managing unstructured data, including video, photos, music and sound. Managing various analytics “Unstructured data is driving the massive growth in storage today, and video surveillance fits right in there,” says Jamie Lerner, CEO and President, Quantum. As data multiplies in business, matters of storing and accessing the data take on a larger profile. Especially challenging is meeting the need to store and access expanding amounts of unstructured data, such as video. Video is also part of a changing end-to-end architecture in the enterpriseWhereas 10 years ago, video surveillance was all about recording and playback, now the emphasis is much more on an end-to-end approach. In addition to capturing and playing back video, systems have to manage various analytics, archival and data retention aspects as well as recording. Video is also part of a changing end-to-end architecture in the enterprise, including hybrid, cloud and on-premise storage. Video surveillance industry Historically, structured data, such as financial information, was stored to allow future analytics. The same trend extends to unstructured data, such as video analytics. Quantum has expanded its video storage capabilities with acquisition this year of the video surveillance business of Pivot3, provider of a hyperconverged system that provides recording, analysis and seamlessly archives data on a converged platform that is less expensive and easier to manage. In acquiring Pivot3, Quantum is refocusing the smaller company on the video surveillance industry. “We are now focused 100% on surveillance and having the highest quality while being very cost-effective,” says Lerner. “The industry is ready for an IT-forward solution that is totally focused on surveillance. You can’t make a platform all things to all people.” Traditional security customers There is overlap in large stadiums and theme parks, where Lerner sees even more opportunity to expand Pivot3 will also help to expand Quantum’s customer base. The larger company has a history of serving customers in entertainment, movies, television and sports production. The addition of Pivot3’s 500 new customers in large surveillance, transportation and critical infrastructure markets will expand the mix. There is overlap in large stadiums and theme parks, where Lerner sees even more opportunity to expand. Pivot3 also helps to bridge the gap between traditional security customers and the information technology (IT) department. “Pivot3 has a reputation as simple to use,” says Lerner. “My belief is that physical security can run separately [from IT] until you reach a certain size, then IT has to be involved. Pivot3 gives IT people in the security space a product that is well formed and fits into an IT strategy. They are not undertaking a piece of equipment that will be a burden.” Physical security presence Customers expect their infrastructure vendors to provide systems that allow them to “Set it and forget it,” says Lerner. It’s one of the big advantages of cloud computing and also central to Quantum’s approach with their traditional products. “At the end of the day, you want to run a hospital, for example, so you want your systems to be easy to use,” says Lerner. The Pivot3 acquisition will also allow Quantum to expand their physical security presence more broadly and globally. Previously, the geographic reach of Pivot3 was limited by the high cost of placing personnel in diverse locations. Under Quantum, which has been serving global companies for 40 years, the problem disappears. “Quantum has global support on all continents and in more countries,” says Lerner. “It’s a higher level of support, given size and legacy of our organisation.”

When considering new IT solutions to support today’s modern security and IoT challenges, the number of options to choose from can make finding the tight solution a daunting task. One important factor to consider is whether a solution was actually designed to solve the problem at hand. For example, many storage systems support video ingest from surveillance cameras, but many are not specialised for that very purpose. Instead, video is simply a use-case for a product that was designed for traditional IT workloads. They should be designed to handle the ingest requirements of video and IoT data streams, and retain it in a secure, reliable and efficient manner. While traditional servers and SANs are considered acceptable, when it comes to data storage for video and IoT devices as well as analytics, stakeholders should to consider newer option that have been delivering major efficiencies in the IT space for years. The data dilemma Video and IoT data itself are considered mission-critical for many organizations Video and IoT data itself are considered mission-critical for many organisations. Cameras and intelligent devices provide situational awareness, record events, alert teams of potential threats, and improve safety and security. To glean valuable insights from this captured data, it must be available. And for that it must be stored properly. Furthermore, various regulations mandate retaining video for a certain time or in a way that meets minimum security standards. It does not matter whether high-quality data storage is mandated or desired — to be useful and reliable, it all needs to be both protected and available. This range of considerations is what makes the infrastructure designed for keeping that data a paramount concern. Several factors are converging that bring video and IoT data — and its secure and reliable storage — to the forefront of infrastructure considerations. More cameras, higher-resolution cameras and more cross-channel applications for that information all point to the creation of more data and more ways it possesses value for organisations. IP video cameras are becoming ubiquitous and are being applied more frequently and in higher density applications than previously imagined. Cameras have evolved to provide better resolution, more functionality in low-light or stressful environments and incorporate technologies like thermal detection. And now, video management systems and analytics solutions are making that wealth of data more valuable for both security and business intelligence. The bottom line is that more data needs to be securely stored so that it can be easily retrieved and analysed, all while protecting against data loss. The bottom line is that more data needs to be securely stored so that it can be easily retrieved and analyzed How HCI helps Hyperconverged infrastructure purpose-built for video and IoT data can eliminate frame drops, protecting against video loss and image degradation, while delivering on the overall efficiency promise of HCI. Businesses also need to make sure their infrastructure retains certain functionality during moments when a system is compromised. The right solution can keep storage elements online, automatically restart virtual servers and allow video data retrieval without needing external methods of redundancy.  While today’s capacity and performance requirements are important now, so is having the capability to expand and scale with the business efficiently. By utilising an HCI solution, companies can handle video data, video management systems, analytics and other related applications without worrying about overspending now or encountering any difficulties in expanding their data storage in the future. Business teams in charge of managing and utilising video data need to prioritise proper and efficient storage. The efficiencies you can realise There’s the efficiency of function, efficiency of management and efficiency of cost Businesses know that efficiency comes in many forms. There’s the efficiency of function, efficiency of management and efficiency of cost, to name a few. HCI that’s designed to manage the specific challenges related to video — such as 24/7 operations — provides efficiency in many different forms. HCI done right brings together the previously disparate elements of storage, servers and management processes into a singular piece of hardware. By virtualising the servers and storage that run video and security systems, efficiencies are created that reduce footprint and simplify management, which both reduce costs. Every business should be looking across their enterprise for ways to increase efficiency. When that gaze comes to video surveillance systems, it should be supported by an IT infrastructure that’s purpose-built to maximise the value of video. 

The new year comes with new opportunities for the security industry, but what technologies will dominate our discussions in 2020? Topics such as artificial intelligence (AI) and HCI (hyperconverged infrastructure) became familiar in conversations during 2019, and they are likely to dominate our thoughts again in the new year. But other buzzwords are also gaining steam, such as “blockchain” and “frictionless access control.” Connectivity and the cloud will also be timely technology topics as the industry evolves. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What technology buzz will dominate the security industry in 2020?