Introducing new architecture with VDG Sense 2.6 release

The VDG Sense 2.6 release is almost here. Of course, every release is special in its own right, but the company is particularly excited about this one, because it doesn’t only feature the regular tweaks and updates, but a whole new architecture as well! Wilco Gorthuis, Manager R&D with TKH Security, elaborates about this new architecture, the benefits that the new features have for TKH Security and for their clients, scalability and the phased implementation.

Like a house
The first generation of VDG’s video management software was released some 15 years ago, and even though it was still functional, it was ready for a redesign. This allows us to keep meeting our clients’ demands further down the road and to maintain a state of the art architecture that is compatible with the newest technologies. Gorthuis compares VDG Sense architecture to that of a house: “As with a house, sometimes the foundation has to be rebuilt to accommodate new technologies that improve the quality of life. This also holds true for our architecture.” The R&D team has been rebuilding its foundations to house new technologies that have already emerged and to pave the way for upcoming technological developments. This future proofs the company and its API, and ensures meeting the client’s demands.

Benefits for TKH Security
Of course, the architecture also has benefits for TKH Security itself. “First of all, the monolithic server application is divided up into microservices, which gives the team more control. By decomposing the monolithic server application into different micro services improves modularity. This makes the application easier to understand, maintain and test and it also improves our development speed” says Gorthuis.

Benefits for TKH Security clients
Gorthuis: “With the arrival of these new micro services, the architecture is even better prepared to accommodate further growth and to keep up with demand. The micro services are designed specifically to scale up when the system is used more heavily. Essentially, we want to keep pace with the changing landscape and connect more cameras to the same hardware,” Gorthuis explains.

Scalability
As you can gather from the above, one of the main reasons of the architectural overhaul is scalability. VDG Sense must support the storage and management of camera streams in a multi-server environment, but we noticed that installations are getting bigger and bigger with each generation and knew that our customers expect our systems to grow along with them. We have prepared our architecture to keep up with these demands in the future.

Phased implementation
The implementation of the new architecture will be phased and spread out over multiple releases. Gorthuis explains why: “We use phased implementation, because it allows us to release parts of the infrastructure that are already done, it allows us to better anticipate and react to new demands and because our clients can’t afford to wait for an update for 2 years.” The new architecture is not available for download yet, as TKH Security is currently testing the update with a select number of clients before officially releasing the new software. After its release, a new update is set to drop every 6 months.

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