ST Mar-Apr 2021

MARKET FOCUS: FOCUS:
SURVEILLANCE
"Given we're moving beyond 4K now and into the realm of 8K and
10K cameras, the data generated is proliferating rapidly. The
amount of data created by way of these higher resolution
cameras has vastly overwhelmed many organisations' storage
budgets, and most firms are only coping with it by reducing frame
rates and storing data for only a few days before it has to be
deleted. Given these are both undesirable options, the industry
is clearly in need of much less costly storage options than the
on-premises hardware solutions traditionally used."
such costs, many police departments and
private security firms tend to only keep body
cam footage for periods of time as little as
two weeks.
THE RIGHT CLOUD APPROACH
For companies needing to expand the
amount of video footage they can store, there
are typically two routes available. Either
picking a single vendor solution from a
hyper-scaler which incorporates everything
you need - cameras, software and storage all
in one, or selecting a systems integrator
package, where you purchase a bespoke
solution via a third-party.
The single vendor option is convenient in
many ways, but can prove costly in the long
term, given you could be locked into only
using their cloud storage provider for a
number of years whose services can be
marked up at a whim. It can be hard to justify
such an expensive solution when independent
cloud storage solutions can store the same
amount of data for a tenth of the price or
less.
It's also worth considering the data security
implications of an all-in-one solution. This
week it came out that one of the largest
Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS)
vendors suffered a huge data breach that
affected customers globally with hackers
gaining access to 150,000 video cameras
and archived footage.
Everything from hospitals to schools,
enterprise corporations, police departments,
and prisons were compromised, which raises
the likelihood of additional problems, such as
interruptions in the chain of custody for
evidence in law enforcement contexts, or
compliance breaches where healthcare
regulation is concerned. Whilst a VSaaS
solution can prove attractive for security
departments looking to remove the burden of
excessive management and admin, it cannot
be denied that a solution that secures both
live stream footage and storage of video in
transit and at rest is objectively better.
Using a hybrid cloud solution that air-gaps
video management software (VMS) onpremises,
while utilising the cloud primarily
for storage, is one of the best ways to secure
surveillance video data. Such a solution is
designed to mitigate against potential
problems that crop up in using a pure cloud
solution for surveillance applications, from
maintaining operational effectiveness (e.g.
speed, bandwidth and guarding against
latency) as well as legal requirements that
may require data retention for years on end.
In a surveillance context, most recent video
would be stored locally for sake of speed -
where it usually only needs to be stored for a
day or two, subsequently being copied to the
cloud where it can be kept for as long as the
organisation needs it.
Picking a provider that enables you to make
video files "immutable" to protect it against
malicious data destruction should also be a
key feature of your surveillance storage
strategy. Some providers offer services that
allow you to store data in immutable
"buckets" which in object storage terms
operate similar to folders on PCs or Macs.
Data stored in these buckets cannot be
modified or deleted by anyone, enabling you
to store data in them for several decades.
Companies can get on top of their
surveillance storage needs by partnering with
a solution that allows maximum flexibility in
storing and managing unlimited data. This
will empower security decision makers to
carry out their duties as effectively as possible
to protect and serve stakeholders.
More info: www.wasabi.com
www.storagemagazine.co.uk
@STMagAndAwards Mar/Apr 2021
STORAGE
MAGAZINE
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