Video Surveillance Solutions Need Enterprise Level Strategy

The number and variety of video surveillance devices is growing, and with it the amount of data collected increases. Storing this data is becoming an important component of any video surveillance strategy, and for many enterprises, the choice of a security strategy depends on this.

The market for video surveillance equipment is booming. The diversity and number of devices increases, the data storage periods increase, the demand for threat analytics increases, while budgets remain limited. According to the forecast of the research firm IHS, while maintaining the growth rate (twice the growth rate of the traditional hardware market of the IT market), by 2018 the video surveillance market in combination with the corporate storage systems market will cost more than $ 25 billion.

Surveillance devices can be found everywhere: from airports to banks, from retail stores to schools and highways; on the street corners, in the courtyards of residences, and even on the people themselves. It's hard not to please somewhere on the record during the day. In the United States alone, for every 10 people, there is one camera with a closed telesystem.
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But the cameras are just the tip of the iceberg. In order to keep pace with the growth of threats, it is necessary to increase the complex security infrastructure, which leads to the expansion of the nomenclature and the number of devices. For example, as cameras appear in an increasing number of places, the amount of video information collected that needs to be stored grows exponentially. Two weeks of video memorization requires approximately 18.4 GB of memory. Analysts predict that by 2020, approximately 3.3 billion hours of stored video surveillance will accumulate. In addition to the growing amount of stored data, the range of devices is also growing due to such types as wearable cameras, unmanned aircraft cameras, car DVRs, video surveillance, satellite surveillance, license plate shooting, audio registration, etc. Organizations are also competing for upgrades: they introduce high-resolution IP cameras and cameras, and also seek to store data for longer periods of time. In aggregate, all these factors feed the "video whirlwind."

Ultimately, as a result of this growth, not only increased safety is achieved. As surveillance devices and analytics technology evolve, data collected can also be used cost-effectively, for example, to prevent losses and in business intelligence tasks.

However, upon reaching this level of development, the emergence of new tasks is inevitable, among which growth management is the first in a row. To ensure this control, IT workers should change their perception of surveillance data and start using them in the same way as other enterprise applications, rather than continue to follow an outdated approach to monitoring and managing surveillance data at a purely technical level.

The traditional work model, which treats any purchased device as a black box or something that can only be completely “ripped up and replaced” (rip-and-replace) should be replaced by an open, flexible corporate model (networks, computing processes, storage, virtualization). and security). This infrastructure should provide a stable, open, flexible, and reliable type architecture with built-in functions.

This transition from an appliance model to an enterprise model is in harmony with a larger general trend - the convergence of physical IT security systems and security systems through IT. IT must be involved in the operation of the physical security system, because it carries information about the infrastructure. At the same time, security personnel need to be well-versed in IT to better understand the technological capabilities of their systems.

This means that the video registration system must be included in the storage infrastructure, which can store the video in a way that meets the technical requirements of the infrastructure. For example, it should support high resolution video from megapixel cameras and be able to record higher frame rates without losing data. It must also be scalable to give space to potential facilities; have security options to prevent files from being deleted or modified; be able to manage the entire data life cycle.

This task is solved by combining data storage architectures. Most modern surveillance architectures follow a distributed model with several hundred video surveillance devices recording video and other data locally, usually at the initial stage next to the camera. After the nth time period, the video to be saved is moved to the centralized storage system. Other video fragments are deleted in a distributed structure when the storage period ends. Storage management of both distributed and centralized data creates numerous problems and urgently requires a holistic approach to storage.

With the transition to distributed architectures, many video surveillance solutions have shifted functionality and data processing to the periphery of the network, closer to cameras and video recordings. Often, these systems use the received data in other applications or systems, such as access control or hacking detection without regard to centralized storage. This reduces the risks arising from the presence of a single critical point, and distributes the processing load. For many enterprises, a hybrid model that uses the properties of distributed and centralized architectural approaches is ideal.

In the end, not all data must be on the periphery, and, of course, not forever. At one time, video data intended for long-term storage is moved to a central repository. For centralized storage, the whole problem is in scale. Centralized surveillance architectures are designed to manage environments with a large number of cameras or other devices, where thousands of observation devices are often involved, which provide large amounts of surveillance data.

Central storage of surveillance data must be efficient and maintain a high load level to justify the investment. In addition, the transition time must be extremely low so that changes in resolution or pixelation can be made smoothly.

How EMC solves this problem with VNX-VSS

The balanced video surveillance solution offered by EMC is focused on these issues. The EMC model combines a distributed and centralized architectural approach. EMC VNX-VSS storage, being specially built and configured for widely distributed video surveillance environments and primarily used in distributed structures, allows for a corporate approach to the surveillance infrastructure. Therefore, although the VNX-VSS is made on the simple principle of "plug-and-play", i.e. supplied pre-configured and ready for immediate deployment, its capabilities go far beyond the limits assumed by such a model.

This enterprise-class solution provides unprecedented performance and reliability: it has been verified that its availability level is 99.999% (“five nines”); remote management capabilities; 50 inspections of observation decisions are provided. VNX-VSS video transmission capabilities provide compatibility, optimizing transmission over a distance, allowing organizations to transfer video from storage peripherals to a centralized repository to maintain multi-level data, as well as perform intelligent research or analysis of surveillance data (eg, face and motion recognition, colors, stereotypes buyer behavior, license record recognition).

VNX-VSS is fully compatible with all components of the video surveillance ecosystem, which reduces the risks of deployment and operation and makes it easy for enterprises. Thanks to this, the user can easily switch between different partners. VNX-VSS supports cameras from all leading manufacturers and has licensed video management software from companies such as Genetec, Milestone, Verint, Honeywell and Bosch.

VNX-VSS is an extremely scalable system. It comes in a starting configuration of 24 TB and 120 TB and can be expanded to 480 TB to meet the capacity needs of the most demanding distributed structures.

In addition, VNX-VSS is optimized for virtualization. Video management is becoming increasingly virtualized everywhere, and any storage solution must be able to match this trend. VNX-VSS systems offer multiple integration points for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. VAAI and VASA with VMware and ODX and SCO with Microsoft are successfully deployed, providing virtualized video management applications.

For those surveillance storage companies whose VNX-VSS needs cannot be met, EMC Isilon Video Surveillance Solutions offers massive, large-scale storage at the core network level. Together, these two solutions can support more network cameras on the periphery, increase the number of hours of surveillance, save high-resolution video, and save content on the periphery for longer periods.

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For questions contact: emc@muk.ua.

It is worth noting that EMC solutions through a group of companies are now available in Moldova , Georgia , Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan - a distribution contract was recently signed in these countries.

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