AST Digital Magazine March 2016 | Page 19

1 2 Volume 2 Safer, Smarter Cities Require a New Approach to Surveillance Infrastructure Wayne Arvidson, Quantum’s Vice President of Video Surveillance and Security Solutions Mainstream adoption of high resolution IP cameras both for city surveillance and for protection of government buildings and critical infrastructure has resulted in a dramatic increase in storage capacity used for surveillance over the last couple of years—and the trend is going to continue. Today, HD-compliant 1080p 25/30 frames per second (fps) specifications have become the minimum expected for new cameras. {1} The deployment of more cameras capturing sharp, detailed images is one reason the total RAW capacity of enterprise storage used for video surveillance is expected to increase 48% in 2016, according to IHS {2}, but other factors are contributing as well. Legal considerations are impacting data retention, resulting in the need for more storage capacity. Video files from surveillance cameras are being kept longer to satisfy litigation and judicial requirements and to provide valuable forensic evidenc e during investigations. As a result, data visibility and evidence of chain of custody are critically important to maintain, putting stress on storage infrastructures to accommodate the volume. Body-worn cameras used by law enforcement officers are impacting storage capacity, and more wide-spread use of these units is expected in 2016. {3} Video footage from these devices not only drives the need for more capacity, but it also affects data retention. Given the importance of footage captured from these cameras for legal and insurance reasons alone, the data must be retained for a long time—in some cases, many years. Add to this the growing list of benefits made possible by the correlation of video data with input from “smart” devices, and the demand for storage—and storage integration— explodes. Embedded sensor technology is enabling cities to become smarter, and data from that sensor input can be integrated with video data and analyzed to help make urban communities more attractive. Today, vehicle and pedestrian traffic can be captured and integrated with sensor input from buses, trains, and subway stations to minimize congestion. Similarly, parking facilities can be monitored and the video combined with input from smart meters to reduce March 2016 Edition bottlenecks and to improve consumer satisfaction. Data Storage – Obstacle or Enabler of Smarter, Saver Cities All these factors are converging to create a tremendous opportunity. However, realizing the full potential of the opportunity will require a different approach to storage design and infrastructure projects. For analytics to be effective, data must be kept for a long period and integrated with input from many different sources because trends and patterns emerge from combining disparate data sets and analyzing them over time. The longer the data is retained, the better the quality of the analytics, which leads to more accurate conclusions and better decisions. A typical approach to storage design, where each department is viewed as a stand-alone entity, can result in islands of storage—functional for the singular purpose of storing video data but incapable of integrating easily with other systems and thereby inhibiting the potential of the data to be applied for other uses. Consequently, the traditional project-based approach to video surveillance storage must give way to a broader, more strategic view. A successful design requires input and cooperation from all departments, agencies, and IT. Video-based data is vital to delivering safer, smarter cities. By factoring in the various ways video data will be used early in the planning cycle will help to ensure an integrated storage design is developed that is high-performing, scalable, and cost-effective. A tiered architecture utilizing a combination of high performance disk, secondary disk, tape, and cloud storage is the most cost-effective design. A tiered approach is flexible and capable of scaling as needed to accommodate growth as camera counts go up, retention times increase, image formats change, and file sizes grow larger. In addition, a tiered approach can be deployed enterprisewide, simplifying integration with other systems and enabling advanced analytics. New camera technology, sensor input from smart devices, and analytics are changing the surveillance industry, offering new opportunities for security professionals to deliver on the promise of safer, smarter cities. However, a more holistic approach to surveillance infrastructure projects is needed in order to architect a storage platform capable of cost-effectively meeting the capacity, performance, scalability, and integration needs required to capitalize on the opportunity. 19