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| Mohegan Sun the entertainment and fun destination has been provided DVR solutions from Verint |
Built in 1996 by the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut, Mohegan Sun is one of the most spacious and exciting gaming and entertainment destinations in the United States. The Mohegan Sun facility encompasses more than 300,000 square feet of gaming space, a 34-story, 1,200-room luxury hotel tower, 30 of New England's finest dining establishments, 130,000 square feet of retail space, a 10,000-seat arena that plays host to world-class entertainers, 100,000 square feet of meeting space and much, much more.
The solution
In 2002, the Mohegan Sun security team upgraded its recording infrastructure with a technology that would have a dramatic impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of its security systems, while setting the stage for a fully-digital recording platform the introduction of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) from Verint Video Intelligence Solutions.
The move to Verint DVRs has had a dramatic impact on the security policies and investigative procedures at Mohegan Sun. With the DVRs in place, it has been able to adopt a 100 percent recording policy, where everything that happens within the Mohegan Sun campus is captured and archived.
A winning strategy
When the topic of gaming security comes up, most security professionals instantly think of the Las Vegas strip where the only thing more prevalent than slot machines and neon lights are surveillance cameras and security personnel. However on the opposite side of the United States sits a gaming facility that can rival any luxury destination "Sin City" has to offer.
Built in 1996 by the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut, Mohegan Sun is one of the most spacious and exciting gaming and entertainment destinations in the United States. The Mohegan Sun facility encompasses more than 300,000 square feet of gaming space, a 34-story, 1,200-room luxury hotel tower, 30 of New England's finest dining establishments, 130,000 square feet of retail space, a 10,000-seat arena that plays host to world-class entertainers, 100,000 square feet of meeting space and much, much more.
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| Mohegan Sun needs a constant surveillance and recording of the happenings inside its premises |
Just like the mega resorts on the Las Vegas strip, keeping the enormous Mohegan Sun campus and all its guests and employees safe and secure is no simple task. The Mohegan Sun security team has spent decades developing and gradually enhancing a customised, state-of-the-art digital surveillance system that monitors security events in real-time, while efficiently archiving high-quality video data for easy access during investigations.
A complex mix of facilities
Creating a comprehensive surveillance system to handle the myriad of environments throughout the Mohegan Sun campus required careful planning and execution. The campus is divided into four distinct security zones Transportation, Public Safety, Security and Gaming each with its own unique requirements. For instance, Transportation security must film every car entering the valet area to create a video record of each vehicle in order to refute and validate damage claims by patrons. Public Safety covers all exterior areas of the property, as well as the public works facilities within the campus. The Security Group is in charge of all non-gaming areas inside the facility, including parking structures and employee areas, as well as the hotel, arena and convention centre. Finally, Gaming handles security for the casino floor, Keno parlours and money counting areas. Each campus zone has its own stakeholders and security demands that must be satisfied.
Evolution not revolution
For the Mohegan Sun security team, the development of a cutting-edge, digital surveillance solution involved a meticulous process that began before the casino ever opened its doors. At the time Mohegan Sun was being constructed, its initial security system comprised a hybrid of analogue cameras connected to a series of more than 140 VCRs. While this provided video coverage of all the areas within the facility, the process of changing out VCR cassettes was resource-intensive, and the recording quality of the video was not what it could be. In addition, the ability to quickly locate a particular segment of video footage was tedious, at best, and often times consuming. This made it challenging to quickly and efficiently access and leverage video data for investigative purposes.
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| Verint provides intelligent digital video recording solutions for security monitoring purposes |
For the following generation of the casino's video technology, Mohegan Sun swapped out its VCRs for DAT recorders, which resulted in some improvements in personnel bandwidth. Yet, the archived system still required man power to maintain the system, as well as extensive time to locate specific video segments. Even with the new automated DAT tape library, video retrieval still took longer than desired for real-time investigative applications.
The catalyst for going digital
In 2002, the Mohegan Sun security team upgraded its recording infrastructure with a technology that would have a dramatic impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of its security systems, while setting the stage for a fully-digital recording platform the introduction of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) from Verint Video Intelligence Solutions.
The move to Verint DVRs has had a dramatic impact on the security policies and investigative procedures at Mohegan Sun. With the DVRs in place, it has been able to adopt a 100 percent recording policy, where everything that happens within the Mohegan Sun campus is captured and archived.
"The transition from tapes to Verint hard drives in 2002 was the most significant change in our history of surveillance system operations," said Mica Millbach, Security Technology Manager and Information Security Manager with Mohegan Sun. "The 100 percent coverage afforded by the DVRs helps to eliminate dead spots we used to have with the legacy VCRs and DAT recorders. Since then, our security team has been able to perform more investigations, leveraging the same amount of personnel, which has had a dramatic impact on our efficiency and effectiveness."
Without the need to maintain extensive tape libraries, the DVRs allowed Mohegan Sun security personnel to focus on more strategic monitoring and investigative tasks. The Verint DVRs also reduced the need to limit video sampling rates, resulting in higher quality recordings. Security personnel could instantly refer to any segment of high-quality video that was captured, which allowed them to respond to security breaches and other incidents in a matter of moments rather than days. It also significantly improved the ability to "connect the dots" and detain perpetrators before they ever left the premises.
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| Mohegan Sun follows a 100 percent recording facility where every thing is recorded and archived |
"The ability provided by the Verint DVRs made the video data we captured more usable and actionable in real-time," explained Millbach. "We can intercept criminal acts as they happen, thereby changing the course of the outcomes."
With the DVRs in place, reliability levels soared beyond the 90 percent mark. Maintenance involved simple system optimisation tasks that reduced hard drive failure and ensured redundancy. Failover measures were put in place to facilitate system continuity, replacing hard drives before any video was compromised. In addition, a RAID 5 storage system was added to archive video data and further increase redundancy.
Maximising a mix of analogue and digital
The next upgrade to the Mohegan Sun security system came in 2006 with the addition of Verint eight-channel digital video encoders. The encoders sit on the network's edge at the point of video capture, where video quality is at its highest. Along with the Verint encoders, the security team deployed a CAT5 cable network for high-speed digital video transport.
"We're now capturing video over two different channels coax for analogue and CAT5 for digital video from the Verint edge encoders," added Millbach. "This enables significantly higher resiliency rates in the event one system goes down." The dual network approach provides Mohegan Sun security personnel with the best of both worlds. The coax network allows security teams in the command centre to instantly call up, and switch between, any cameras on the network without a hint of latency. The CAT5 network and edge encoders capture premium quality video data that enables investigators to see every detail of a security event. In addition, the CAT5 network and encoders have laid a solid foundation for next-generation analytics applications and megapixel cameras at Mohegan Sun.
Looking Ahead - What's next for Mohegan Sun?
According to Millbach, the next evolution of the Mohegan Sun digital surveillance system will be to deploy megapixel cameras at key points throughout the casino where one camera could replace several, such as cashier windows. Megapixel technology helps reduce camera count, while increasing performance optimisation.
Another opportunity facing Mohegan Sun security is how to take the vast amounts of video data being captured by its surveillance network, and analyse and apply it for business level improvements. With the help of Verint's analytics, casino facilities can better understand their guests' activities, and in turn, help increase revenue, reduce operational costs, and gain greater insight into guest behaviours. "We continue to leverage our Verint system to help identify trends within our casino and make operational decisions based on that hard data and look forward to taking those capabilities to the next level," states Millbach.
Mohegan Sun has a long history of security investment and innovation and continuing to invest in the latest in video surveillance technology remains key to its strategy. "Partnering with a vendor that understands our security challenges and has a proven track record of reliability and support, as well as the financial viability to be around for the long haul, is critical," added Millbach.
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