BCD International, the US-based video data infrastructure manufacturer, reports its Harmonize iDRAC plug-in integration with Milestone Systems XProtect video management software (VMS). iDRAC, which stands for Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller, is a health monitoring agent for remote and local server management, powered by Dell Technologies, that resides on BCD servers and appliances.
BCD has taken the iDRAC service and integrated it with XProtect, so that hardware events, notifications and alarms are now presented within the VMS.VMS users and system integrators can monitor iDRAC features, such as hard disk status, temperatures, fan speed and power supplies, through XProtect. BCDVideo and VSS appliances will be available with the plug-in from May 2021.
BCD says it’s adding integrations that are available only through BCD’s purpose-built appliances, as standard features on all of its related appliances. The Harmonize iDRAC plug-in is part of BCD’s Harmonize software. Harmonize ingests the iDRAC API and listens for specific events, such as drive failure, and shares this critical system information in real-time to operators. The integration means empowers users and those maintaining products can be ahead of failures and manage any server crashes. It also gives them insight as to how well or poor the server resources are being used by being able to monitor central processing unit (CPU) and random access memory (RAM) consumption.
Andrew Hubble, Managing Director, APAC at BCD International, described the plug-in with XProtect as a game changer. He said: “BCD’s unique innovation completes the integrated relationship of the BCD appliance and the XProtect software to provide the ability to receive alarms from both BCD’s appliance and Milestone’s software via the XProtect graphic user interface. This has been the missing link for the complete visibility of the health of the Milestone solution. Additionally, the Harmonize iDRAC plug-in now gives users basic configuration of the BCD appliance along with Milestone’s software, providing better return on investment, competitiveness, and user experience for customers and their supporting system integrators.”
As the firm adds, as video is mission critical, there has been demand for remote server management and health monitoring from a single application. Any issue that arises from the video surveillance platform should be handled with the same importance as a camera tamper event, a door forced issue in an access control system, or complex analytics setting, BCD suggests. Those events are pushed to an operator. With the Harmonize iDRAC plug-in, operators using XProtect will now be able to see and respond to storage issues before failure or occurs via the same screen as they are live viewing the site. Pictured: Milestone XProtect video management software Smart Client screenshot.
