Louisiana FCU Selects Server-Based VMS Solution

High Quality Images Provide Law Enforcement with Evidence Required to Safeguard Credit Union Assets

Arneadra Zeno, Risk Management Officer with the Louisiana Federal Credit Union (FCU) in LaPlace, Louisiana, didn’t have to get up from her desk to rate the video surveillance systems of banks and credit unions in the Greater New Orleans area. The evidence was right in front of her on her computer monitor.

“I see a lot of robbery alert videos from financial institutions and one in particular caught my eye because the quality of the video was so sharp,” said Zeno, who was looking to upgrade Louisiana FCU’s aging system. “I called the director of security for the financial institution in question and they told me they had purchased a March Networks® video surveillance system from NAVCO.”

Louisiana FCU, which serves 28,000 members from four branches in LaPlace, Norco, Hammond and Gramercy, had been coping with an older, outdated proprietary system for several years. “It was difficult extracting video and sharing it with law enforcement or anyone else because they needed special software to view it,” said Zeno. “On top of that, we had very low-end analog cameras and the quality of the video was horrible.”

Zeno and IT director Anthony Landreneau sat down with NAVCO’s Frank Favalora in New Orleans and were very impressed by the options that NAVCO and March Networks could offer.

“At the time, we weren’t sure what we wanted,” said Landreneau. “We just knew we wanted something better than what we had. The quality of the video from the IP cameras we were shown compared with the quality we were used to from our analog cameras was like night and day. We were also impressed with the ease of use and the ease of maintenance. There was really no reason to look at anything else.”

Louisiana FCU chose a server-based solution using March Networks Command Enterprise video manage ment system (VMS) software.

“Appliance-based systems using networked video recorders are still the norm for many financial institutions, but that may be because they don’t have the IT resources in the field necessary for managing server-based systems,” said Landreneau. That wasn’t a problem at the Louisiana Federal Credit Union.

There are several advantages to a server-based system, according to Landreneau.

“There’s a lot more flexibility from an IT perspective, as well as from a security perspective. We can buy a very inexpensive server off the shelf and grow the system exponentially with the latest equipment available.”

Landreneau’s team had the internal IT resources required for a server-based deployment.

“Like any server in production, they require a little more effort to maintain, but it’s worth it,” said Landreneau. “There are patches that have to be applied and there’s the whole issue of cyber security because the last thing you want is to have a Windows server exposed to the Internet without proper patching and firewalling in place. That would be a show-stopper for a lot of organizations.

“When we were doing the research on the servers, we looked at things down to the level of IOPS (input/output operations per second), the rewrites of the hard drives and how to configure the hard drives for failover. We required a system that could have multiple hard drive failures and still continue to run. That’s a job for a Microsoft certified professional or an experienced hardware person,” said Landreneau.

Louisiana FCU has servers in each of its six locations — four branches, a mortgage center and a training facility. Several dozen IP cameras have been deployed along with a number of March Networks encoders for the credit union’s remaining analog devices. The system also covers ATMs and drive-up services at all four branch locations.

Quality video is attained by the combination of top-of-the-line technology products installed by expertly-trained integration experts. As one of March Networks’ leading reseller partners, NAVCO technicians undergo certification courses to guarantee that the systems are properly installed.

Dedicated storage servers are able to accommodate between 14 and 20 TB of video at each location.

Both Zeno and the credit union’s operations manager are able to view live video from a selection of cameras, but the system is mainly used for reviewing video of reported events such as slip and falls or suspicious transactions. The operations manager uses the system to keep an eye on customer traffic to ensure the branches are properly staffed and customer service standards are being met.

Command’s browser-based client interface frees IT staff from having to maintain client software in the field and allows Zeno and other senior management to check on the branch locations from home during hurricane season.

Command Enterprise also allows for Microsoft Active Directory integration, centralized system management and health monitoring, and remote access to video from smartphones and tablets via March Networks Cloud.

Both the IT and risk management departments at Louisiana Federal Credit Union are pleased with their state-of-the-art video surveillance system.

“The ease of use and the much improved quality of the video are exactly what I was looking for,” said Zeno. “With the sharper images from our IP cameras and the ability to easily share video clips with law enforcement and other financial institutions, we’re much better able to protect our members and employees, capture evidence law enforcement can use and safeguard the credit union’s assets.”