Wachovia standardises on March Networks DVRsEnsuring that the best digital video systems are in place across an organization’s retail footprint is no small task
when that organization is as far-reaching as Wachovia. One of the five largest banks in the United States, Wachovia operates more than 3,500 retail financial centres and 5,000 ATMs throughout the country, in addition to other national and international financial service offerings. When the $493 billion company decided in 2004 that it was time to start replacing older CCTV devices running in its retail centers with more sophisticated DVR systems, its first priority was to establish which DVR could best do the job. Leading that evaluation process was David Smith, Wachovia’s Vice President and Leader of Security Systems and Equipment. Smith had been monitoring advances in the DVR market for almost five years and had a clear understanding of what the bank needed in a digital video system. His 31 years of experience had convinced him that the DVR system Wachovia selected had to meet three specific criteria. It had to come with quick and easy access to replacement parts, its manufacturer had to be a stable company with a proven track record, and it had to run on an operating system that ensured maximum device and corporate network security. “We had a short list of about eight competitive systems that we looked at pretty hard,” recalls Smith. “After applying our top three criteria, we found that only a few could actually meet that standard. March Networks™ was one of those.” Proven March Networks had already provided DVR systems to several large banks in North America through an established network of leading systems integrators. The company had also built all of its DVR systems on an embedded Linux operating system stripped of any extraneous code to ensure maximum security and reliability. “March Networks’ operating system was a big advantage, because we absolutely wanted to ensure that our DVRs are not a point of vulnerability to the core network,” says Smith.  Wachovia’s next step was to evaluate the remaining system candidates in lab and live environments against a long list of other criteria, including networking capabilities, bandwidth usage, product engineering, and software features such as system diagnostics.
“The very first thing we did at the testing stage was put the boxes in the network lab and have the IT people bang on them,” says Smith. “We wanted to be sure up front that the DVR we selected had been certified by our IT people for use on the corporate network. “In the end,” he continues, “the engineering that went into the March Networks DVR system was heads above everything else we looked at. The backplane design, for example, that lets you pull the box out and replace it without having to rewire the setup, the ability to throttle bandwidth and do ongoing diagnostics – the fact that March Networks has a networking background really shows in the high quality and performance of its systems.” Software Smith says March Networks’ Enterprise Management Suite software will deliver considerable operational benefits to Wachovia. Designed to streamline the configuration and management of multisite installations, the comprehensive software will provide the bank’s system administrators with capabilities such as centralized health monitoring, automated IP address tracking and centralized control over all user, server and DVR settings. It will give them the ability to remotely apply configuration templates to new DVRs, restore configurations and software versions to replacement DVRs, and schedule remote software updates around peak business hours, when network resources are ideally dedicated to core business activities. The Enterprise Management Suite’s optional Banking Assistant software module will also give Wachovia the ability to integrate transaction data from ATMs and teller stations with synchronized video for use in fraud investigations or customer complaint resolution. To safeguard confidential customer information, the integrated transaction information can easily be separated from the video if an investigator needs to share the video with an outside organization, such as law enforcement. Deployment Wachovia plans to eventually replace all video recording equipment at each of its 3,500 retail financial centers with March Networks 4000 Series DVRs. At first, explains Smith, the bank will deploy the new systems in locations that are being retrofitted or newly constructed, or in instances where older, VCR-based equipment is no longer performing adequately.  In addition, the bank will use March Networks 3204 DVRs to replace existing analog systems at several large, corporate buildings and a number of its 5,000 ATMs. The compact, four-camera DVR is purposebuilt for high performance and reliability in confined spaces such as ATM installations, or in locations with limited camera requirements.
Initially, the DVR systems will be used by Wachovia corporate fraud investigative services, loss management and security services groups. They will enable investigators to quickly search, view and export recorded video evidence from any location over the bank’s corporate network, reducing the amount of time needed to acquire a specific video clip or image to minutes rather than hours or even days. Security personnel based at the bank’s primary alarm monitoring center in Virginia will also use the systems for real-time alarm verification. Smith adds that future uses for the DVR systems have been anticipated and considered in the selection process.
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