All About IP Surveillance Storage Systems
“Video Surveillance is one of the fastest growing and demanding markets in the 21st century. The need to enforce the law, see clearer with high resolution cameras, automatically analyze video content, manage systems and increase retention periods have driven companies such as Rasilient and Genetec to revolutionize IP storage in a way that enables it to keep up with the never ending flow of random data generated by the cameras, and minimize latency in playback. The most two common types of storage are SAN (Storage Area Network), DAS (Direct Attached Storage), and NAS (Network Attached Storage).
IP storage vs NVR:
An NVR or Network Video Recorder is a standalone machine that runs the manufacturer’s proprietary firmware and basic GUI to view and record camera video streams. An NVR is considered an FRU (Field Replaceable Units) in IT terminology, which means the entire NVR is replaced once an issue occurs. The limitations of an NVR are many, but most importantly an NVR has a limited storage capacity with a minimal chance of expanding, limited number of video channels, limited resolutions, limited reliability, and most importantly limited interoperability with other systems.
So why be limited? An IP Storage solution can be plugged to the existing network by using a fiber connection or iSCSI protocol. The storage has no capacity limitations and can grow from 12TB to Petabytes, unlimited number of channels, redundancy for every component, supports all resolutions and have embraced the culture of open platforms which gives you the flexibility of using your preferred network cameras like Axis Communications or open platform video management systems like Genetec’s Security Center.
Modern Day Challenges:
What are the challenges that security experts face while using commodity off-the-shelf storage? Well, most IP storage systems are not specifically built for surveillance. They are in fact built to host structured data such as application’s data, file sharing, manage databases, and broadcasting. So let’s list a few interesting pointers to help us differentiate between the traditional IT storage vs the agile video storage.
- IT storage is more focused on read instead of write: in CCTV a large number of cameras are writing 70% of the time while in IT, a single user stores data and others read it.
- Video data is massive and unstructured: It created a demand for HDDs with higher capacities and better rpm. The nature of data storage in CCTV differs to that in IT where our main focus to make sure every frame is stored for a certain period of time and then it will be replaced and overwritten by new data.
- 7x24x365 constant streaming and performance degradation: The video storage unlike that in IT, cannot tell a camera “please wait” incase the storage is busy. Such act will lead in loss of video which is not acceptable in any CCTV installation. The recycling of the same set of blocks on a disk aka “delete and overwrite” slows down any common storage since it lacks the technology and algorithms to manage the data in its cache.
- Lack of visibility: One of the most important questions is whether all frames are recorded on the storage or not? Visibility into the amount of data flowing into the storage, frame drops, latency and health status of each component is critical.
Storage solutions from the leaders of IP video surveillance at a glance:
Rasilient’s PixelStor 5000 is an optimized and purpose built storage system for video surveillance. It achieves unmatched performance and eliminates video frame loss. It accomplishes this with its patented PixelStor technologies: VAN®, FlowThrough®, StreamAlign® and BusyPlot®. VAN® and FlowThrough® are designed to significantly enhance the storage operation. Performance is further increased with our HyperCache. StreamAlign® technology which significantly reduces disk fragmentation and ensures that performance will not degrade over time. Because of our advanced technologies, performance is incredibly 8x faster than a typical NVR/DVR storage. Genetec’s StreamVault is an appliance that comes preinstalled with the operating system and Genetec’s Security Center. These turnkey appliances are available in different form-factors to support anywhere from 16 to 100 IP devices. You can use a network security appliance to quickly deploy a unified or standalone video surveillance and access control system, or a mix of both.
