Media headlines are often dominated by the latest cybercrime. Although organisations are defending against malicious ransomware attacks with firewalls and disaster recovery, they should be just as prepared to manage face-to-face crime with digital video surveillance, writes Geoff Barrall, pictured, COO, of the IT storage product company Nexsan.
This isn’t just imperative to organisations such as the retail industry that are facing problems with in-store theft, but it can help staff protect the well-being of their employees.
As well as being a deterrent, video surveillance allows organisations to identify suspicious and illegal behaviour before it’s too late. Advances in technology, such as the move from analogue systems to digital IP-based systems have led to a convergence of IT with physical security infrastructure, and the ability to monitor activities on a large scale.
It’s not simply a retail issue – heightened physical security concerns span across all industries including airports, government buildings, entertainment venues and financial institutions. Alongside traditional video recording we are also seeing police officers and other professionals, such as teachers, wearing body worn cameras, which can document evidence. Digital video surveillance is continuing to grow and adapt, playing a vital role within the community.
Increased camera resolutions are becoming a key strategic consideration for surveillance, providing the ability to cover far more area, zoom in on people or objects without loss of detail, and deliver sharp image quality for use by video analytics solutions. Many organisations require higher-resolution video to ensure compliance with insurance providers, maximise loss recovery and strengthen deterrence of criminal acts. However, high-resolution video also comes at a steep price, as more data is captured it requires increased capacity. High-definition video, for example, requires up to 20 times more storage capacity than lower-resolution video captured with older technology.
Higher capacity requirements are only part of the challenge—HD recording also places enormous demands on the throughput performance of today’s surveillance storage solutions. Simply put, a surveillance storage system’s video streaming bandwidth must be sufficient enough to consistently support and sustain write capabilities for multiple high-resolution feeds across a network. Surveillance storage systems must also simultaneously support multiple high-resolution streams. This can mean recording dozens—sometimes hundreds—of parallel video streams, consuming huge amounts of bandwidth. What’s more, many surveillance environments can require 24×7 video monitoring, which boosts bandwidth utilisation even higher. Depending on the number, duration and actual resolution of the incoming video streams, a storage system may struggle to keep up, significantly increasing the risk of dropped frames.
By their very nature surveillance video images are transitory; should inadequate storage bandwidth cause frames to be dropped, any information contained within them is lost forever. As video evidence often plays key roles in civil and criminal proceedings, the loss of such information can have devastating financial and legal consequences.
Deploying a storage solution, that combines the enormous capacity and superior bandwidth that surveillance usage demands, requires a storage system utilising high-density architecture. Simply packing a conventional storage array with a multitude of high-capacity hard drives can yield vast amounts of capacity, but it will take up significantly more space, consume more energy and require more cooling than a properly engineered high-density array. More importantly, it will deliver lower performance per U than a high-density array.
The ability to deliver superior bandwidth in a space-efficient array is significant; because surveillance video solutions are deployed in a wide range of physical environments, they often must be installed in confined locations with little available floor space. Storage arrays that may present an acceptable footprint in conventional data centres are simply too bulky and inefficient for use in the cramped control rooms that confront many security professionals.
So, what should IT professionals look for in a storage solution when it comes to digital surveillance?
•High Density Capacity to meet the growth of live and retained high definition streams
•Increased Performance for capture as well as multi-system playback and search for investigative purposes. Storage systems should be designed to handle hundreds of parallel surveillance streams from high-resolution videos sources without frame-drops
•Increased Density to fit with the constraints of the surveillance control room
•Superior Bandwidth
•Reduced Total Cost of ownership by choosing storage that can deliver reductions in power and cooling for reduced Opex
An abundance of technological advancements has provided organisations with extraordinary levels of surveillance protection. In order to maximise ROI for a digital video surveillance system, it’s important to consider that the investment in the storage platform is equally as important. Organisations need to deploy storage solutions that can deliver the scalability and performance needed to handle the hundreds of video streams and high definition video that modern DVS systems can generate. This will enable them to deliver secure, reliable and high quality protection 24/7, seizing the opportunity these surveillance advancements have to offer.
