With ISC West 2017 kicking off April 5, we’re thinking that what happens in Vegas most definitely shouldn’t stay in Vegas. Specifically, there’s a lot happening in video surveillance — and if you’re the Security administrator or System Integrator responsible for managing video capture and storage for a large organization, we want to make sure you get the most out of those investments. While you are at ISC West we want to have a conversation relating to large-footprint surveillance applications requiring deployments at the system level that support larger than 64 channel installations.
The challenges start with sheer volume. Market estimates are that by 2019, we’ll be generating 2.5 million terabytes (TB) of video data, every day. This growth is driven by an increased number of cameras in use overall, an increase in the use of HD cameras, and changing video data retention requirements.
For security administrators, this aggregate number represents an operational challenge to address in order to ensure business continuity, which includes deterring threats, risks and losses, part of their core responsibilities. But these data growth trends require security administrators to turn their focus from business priorities to solving a functional challenge: Where can I store video, how can I store it for longer, and how can I make sure multiple stakeholders from across the company have access when they need it?
This shift in thinking — from a one-size-fits-all approach to surveillance, to one that takes into account the data boom and subsequent requirements — requires a radically different approach to video security storage. The good news is that although these challenges may be new to video surveillance, they have long been tackled in other arenas, including traditional IT data centers, and there is a lot we can leverage from the knowledge we have gained there.
We’ve found security administrators tend to have a common set of requests for managing their video data deluge, including:
- Do not turn me into an IT administrator.
- Do not make me revamp my storage infrastructure every 12 months.
- Do not give me a system that requires extensive maintenance, or one that could fail when I need it most.
- Do not give me a storage system built for typical IT data centers.
The good news is these things don’t have to happen to security administrators with the right technology, planning and expertise. Seagate’s RealStor storage systems are meant to address each of these issues so administrators can focus on what matters most — ensuring business continuity:
- Avoiding the “IT administrator” pitfalls – It’s understandable that security administrators don’t want to have to worry about things like configuration changes, and keeping the IT systems’ “lights on,” so to speak. Seagate can help administrators address this by managing all of the associated complexities and delivering an easy-to-use system, with a simple and convenient user interface, so they can focus on core business responsibilities.
- Avoiding the need for frequent infrastructure overhauls and revamps – It may be tempting for security administrators to just buy one package that appears to have everything required for the foreseeable future. It’s a lot more economical (i.e. lower lifetime total cost of ownership) to start small but with a system designed to scale, both in size and in features. We’re careful to make sure you can do just that. With Seagate’s scalable storage systems, customers can start with as small as 72 TB and seamlessly grow to accommodate up to a petabyte of storage.
- Avoiding system failures and constant maintenance – This is all about high availability and low failure rates. Seagate systems can meet that need, limiting downtime and allowing administrators to stay focused on their business objectives, and not on individual drive performance. Seagate’s enterprise class storage systems support data protection to handle any drive failures and are based on an architecture with 99.999% availability.
- Avoiding storage systems built for typical IT data centers – Video surveillance is an extremely write-intensive application involving many cameras simultaneously capturing data, which is much different from typical enterprise workloads and applications. Seagate’s storage management firmware comprises a storage system we’re proud to call “4K ready,” meaning it’s capable of meeting the evolving needs of today’s video surveillance systems, including those capturing video at 4K resolution. This system is architected to deliver faster writes and effortlessly handle multiple simultaneous writes.
Seagate will demonstrate its award-winning video surveillance optimized external storage systems (as well as our industry-leading SkyHawk hard drives optimized for multi-drive DVRs and NVRs and up to 64 HD cameras) in booth #25067 at ISC West 2017, taking place April 5-7. Stop by for a free consultation and learn how we can help meet the storage needs of large scale video surveillance installations, in concert with our trusted OEM partners, so you can focus on your most critical job of running your business.
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Rags Srinivasan is senior director for Vertical Markets, Seagate Cloud Systems & Silicon Group
