Why Implement Hyperconverged Storage Infrastructure for Video Surveillance?
Safety is on everyone’s mind these days. With the abundance of risks in the world and shocking, headline-making incidents in the news, it’s no wonder public safety is at the forefront.
Video surveillance is the centerpiece of a robust security program. Thankfully, advancements in technology such as hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), a common solution deployed in modern IT data centers, have made their way into the security market. And this is making it easier for security professionals to build robust systems to protect the people and property entrusted to them.
Growing Market, New Requirements
With the need for enhanced security, the market for video surveillance equipment is growing. For the fifth consecutive year, worldwide revenue has increased, with the last three years—2017, 2018, and 2019—reflecting over eight percent growth per year. According to the IHS Markit Video Surveillance Intelligence Service, this year’s revenue is expected to reach $19.9 billion, a 9.3 percent increase over 2018.
This surge in market growth is driven primarily by three factors: increased demand for better security, smart city and public safety initiatives (public sector), and the desire for business intelligence.
To satisfy these needs, today’s video surveillance systems are required to meet a more stringent set of requirements than earlier generations. Cameras must be multi-functional, capable of doing more than just recording video, like capturing audio and performing onboard analytics. In addition, high-resolution imaging and 360-degree wide-angle viewing are expected, along with the ability to feed data back to software systems in real-time so that actions can be taken quickly.
Analog systems and CCTV-based solutions are not capable of delivering the enhanced capabilities required of today’s systems. As a result, they are being rapidly replaced with network cameras. In fact, according to estimates from IHS, network cameras constituted 70 percent of all cameras shipped worldwide in 2018.
Common Challenges
With advancements in video technology and applications, security professionals and business executives alike can reap significant benefits. But as technology has changed and video surveillance systems have grown and evolved, so have the challenges. What are some of the common obstacles that organizations face?
Complexity: Video surveillance systems are made up of multiple components: cameras to capture images, video management software (VMS) to process and to manipulate those images and storage to archive footage. Traditional video system infrastructures require multiple systems to handle these separate functions. As camera and channel counts grow, the number of servers required to ingest and to process the volume increases. Even taking advantage of hardware consolidation, traditional architectures can become very complex to manage.
Storage: With high-resolution cameras, the need for storage capacity is growing. The higher the resolution of the camera, the larger the video images become, requiring more storage capacity to archive them. In addition, strict policies and legal regulations are in some cases stipulating longer retention times for video files.
The effect on storage requirements is significant and has had a measurable impact on the market. In fact, according to estimates from Market Research Future (MRFR)—as reported by Reuters—the video surveillance storage market is expected to reach $38 billion globally over the forecast period 2017-2023, representing a 25% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR).
Technical Skills: Enhanced technology is good. Much can be achieved to improve security through the application of new technology. Today’s video surveillance systems, with their high-performing multifunction cameras and sophisticated analytics software, resemble complex information systems - no surprise to IT professionals who are accustomed to working with technology. But many surveillance systems are still managed by security professionals, not IT departments. As video surveillance technology becomes more complicated, this can present skills challenge for some organizations.
Leveraging New Applications: One challenge often faced by IT professionals is the inability to leverage new functionality or to deploy new applications because of limitations posed by inadequate infrastructure. In other words, there may be a new application available that would dramatically improve their operations, but they are unable to deploy it because their IT infrastructure won’t support it.
Video surveillance often works the same way. A lot is being done in the area of analytics and smart applications, but older systems that don’t provide the proper network infrastructure to support them can’t take advantage of the innovations.
What is Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Video Surveillance?
Hyperconvergence is an architectural framework. It refers to the bringing together of multiple discreet components into a unified construct that is easy to deploy and simple to manage. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) refers to the application of hyper-convergence to manage discreet information technology resources, specifically compute (CPU and memory), storage, and networking.
To better explain, it’s helpful first to consider traditional IT infrastructure architecture. In a traditional model, IT resources—compute, storage, and networking—are installed, configured, and managed as separate, discrete components. Information technology specialists, using management tools, assign resources to workloads and manage the configuration and use of those resources across the enterprise.
In an HCI environment, IT resources are treated differently. HCI bundles compute, storage and networking components into a unified platform with a common management layer and a hypervisor. Resources are virtualized and managed through software. The hypervisor controls the different components within the platform, and information technology specialists no longer need to be concerned with the specific underlying hardware.
Although HCI was once only considered viable for specific applications—such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)—the capability has evolved, other uses have been found, and adoption has grown in enterprise data center environments.
But what does this mean for video surveillance?
To answer this question, it’s helpful first to consider traditional network-based video surveillance architecture and the infrastructure that supports it. In this environment, intelligent cameras are installed and connected to the network via an IP (internet protocol) interface. Video footage flows across the network and is saved on storage devices, usually either direct access appliances or a storage area network (SAN). Video management system (VMS) software, which runs on a server connected to the network, is used to manipulate and manage the video files.
In an HCI environment, intelligent cameras are installed and connected to the network just like a traditional environment, but the supporting infrastructure is different. Video footage still flows across the network, but instead of being processed by discreet components and saved to discreet storage devices, the processing and storage are handled within the unified HCI platform.
More Convenience, Better Security
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) for video surveillance offers many benefits to security professionals. By integrating compute, storage, and networking into one platform, HCI solutions are easier to install and manage, and security professionals can handle the tasks themselves without the need for specialized IT help. Fewer components mean complexity is minimized, and less time is spent handling integration and management problems. Using virtualization, resources are easily configured and utilized efficiently, saving time and money.
But the benefits of HCI go further. HCI appliances enable resources, specifically storage, to scale. That means as environments grow, the platform can grow, too. This is critical in today’s surveillance world because intelligent cameras continue to become denser and more sophisticated, driving the need for more storage capacity, and with advanced analytics, smart buildings, and business intelligence uses for video expanding, the value of video will only continue to increase.
New security applications and advanced analytics are making it possible to improve security operations and better protect people and property. A hyperconverged infrastructure can provide a solid underlying platform to deploy new capabilities for current applications and future expansion.
About the author: Jim Simon is vice president, global field and channel marketing, for Quantum Corporation, based in Singapore. Jim is the inventor of three patents related to automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) video surveillance applications for police vehicles.
