Milestone Analytics 2.2 Generic VA Interface - Manual (Page 8)

Milestone XProtect Analytics 2.2 Generic VA Interface; Developer’s Manual
www.milestonesys.com Page 8 Architecture & Data Flow
The overall data flow of the framework is as follows: the underlying analytics systems detects a
predefined behavior, which is configured by setting up rules, and sends out an alert notification to
its surroundings in a format specific to the vendor. Through configuration, the analytics driver is
set up to catch the alerts.
All caught alerts are transformed into a common format defined by Milestone, namely the Milestone
Alert Data (MAD) format, and stored in a common database. A plugin has been developed for the
Smart Client, which pulls the alert information from the database and displays it. By switching to
browse mode in the Smart Client, users can browse through recorded alerts, and for each alert see
a marked up image of the alert situation.
The Alert plugin in the Smart Client, with loaded data in the alert list
To view the video clip that corresponds to the alert situation, the standard playback functionality in
the Smart Client can be used.
The Common Alert Format (MAD)
The common alert format is a very essential part of the analytics framework. All alerts, regardless
of the actual vendor-specific system they originally came from, are stored side-by-side in the same
database and can be displayed in the same user interface control since the format of data is known
to the system.
The alert format has been elaborated based on alert samples collected from a wide range of VCA
vendors, and the intention with the format is that it supports all the common fields that usually are
stored in alerts. Having this “super-format,” it will be possible to convert any alert from any system
into this. Since we do not wish to throw away data, we have designed a special place-holder where