Building A Milestone VMS Server Vs Seneca?

First I would consider looking at BCD Video instead of Seneca for many reasons.  The best reason is that BCD Video has a lot of Dell product in stock.  Second BCD Video's pricing will be better than Seneca.  You will get quicker delivery for faster deployment of your server.  BCD will install the hard drives that are made for Video not data.  BCD video will burn in raid for your project which you will have to do if you buy the product from Dell.com or Lenovo.  Your server will come with Milestone already installed and ready to go just buy your licenses from your favorite distributor.  The Dell warranty is 5 years on sight if anything goes wrong with the hardware.  BCD will guaranty the server configuration based on the information you gave them for calculation.  If the server does not perform as it should BCD and Dell our responsible.  BCD video has servers for analytic and AI applications in stock Seneca does not.

Like I said at the top there are many more reasons I have not stated here but I believe there is enough to make an easy decision to move to BCD Video.

Whoever you use, I would definitely spend the extra money for a builder who says they certify their product with whatever VMS you are using. I've come across a couple name brand systems that had name brand VMS on them that had constant crashing issues, and Milestone was one of them. I've never seen or heard of a VMS problem where the finger could be pointed to hardware compatibility when it came from the VMS company or a system builder who says they tested and certified the VMS for the hardware.

Also, check out Pivot 3. I have experience with pretty much all of them (working with a big BCD project now), They are all good, but i do like Piviot 3.

Have you considered a Milestone Husky 500A or the new X8?

Dwayne's suggestion is a good one for the US market.  We have to remember that IPVM's reach is not just the US market.  Also we have to remember that Milestone's reach is just not the US market.  Manufacturers have to think globally and if you have hardware that is not being able to be service under warranty in International Markets than this is just a bad plan because now your costs go up a lot.  The BCD Video solution with the backing of Dell worldwide is able to be serviced globally without having to send hardware back to the US.

In the International sales world we call this a tremendous value proposition!

UM#2,

I'm not sure about your response. You are making an assumption. UEU#1 could let us know where the project is located and we could possibly recommended a solution.

Milestone Husky's have been a great solution outside of the US. I have them on every continent except Antarctica. I've only found it difficult to get them in Asia.

I prefer to use them because I can count on the local certified vendors to service the hardware (failed drives, etc.) and XProtect application instead of counting on contracted IT resources to service a Dell server with very little or no knowledge of XProtect.

Dwayne Dell does not touch software on their machines only their hardware.  If you have only experienced hard drives failing this is great.  Your local certified vendors can't fix a mother board, NIC card, graphics card etc locally because the Husky hardware is not off the shelf product.  We have sold many Husky's Milestone is a great VMS in my opinion the best. I would rather work with a company like BCD who knows hardware and have certified there hardware solutions for what ever application is needed.

Typically from what I have seen Seneca isn't that much more than a Dell. With Seneca you know it will work and they guarantee it will work if you use their calculator and put in the correct specs. Seneca does have their management software installed which is also very good. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. The bigger Seneca models have a 5 year next business day warranty that comes standard. I have a vendor I can get both from and the Seneca is typically just a little more in price, usually around $100 or so depending on the model. 

Started using Seneca on Milestone and have had very good luck with them.  Easy to configure and solid.  Have not seen price being an issue.

We decided to go with Seneca. Their engineers understood Milestone to a degree that I needed them to. They were aware of the extra features that would tax our server and added GPUs for future expansion proofing. They basically have a team dedicated to messing around with the top VMSs, and speaking to them personally assured me that if I or my manager were stuck on something, Seneca would be there as a Tier 3 solution to assess the circumstances.