Video surveillance is ubiquitous. In a single day, we might move through dozens of CCTV systems where we work, live, shop and play. While video surveillance might be more straightforward in smaller business settings, large organizations must operate both intricate and vast infrastructures to secure their operations. This complex infrastructure – as well as the exploding rate of data generation and increasingly sophisticated threats facing it – requires IT leaders to reframe the way they approach video surveillance. Instead of just plugging in a new NVR as physical space expands, enterprises must think deeply about the resilience of their entire video surveillance operation, including the foundational data storage and security infrastructure.
This is all happening against the backdrop of the rapidly growing demand for surveillance. A recent analysis found that the video surveillance market is projected to reach $23.60 billion by 2027. A changing regulatory picture also poses challenges. In March of this year, the U.S. enacted the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA). This new law solidifies the enterprise’s responsibility not only to mitigate cyberattacks wherever possible but also to thoroughly report on them if they occur. This demands enterprises to build a more sophisticated video surveillance infrastructure that can both evade escalating cyberattacks and make any data relevant to reporting accessible.
Organizations can better meet both practical and regulatory demands when improving or reshaping their video surveillance operation through this resiliency-focused approach. Among critical infrastructure sectors like energy or defense, this new mindset is crucial. But IT leaders must reframe their thinking and act now, otherwise, their video surveillance infrastructure resilience will be unable to meet the pressures of tomorrow.
To achieve this, IT leaders need to start with the core of their enterprise’s video surveillance infrastructure: the storage foundation. Without a quality storage system underpinning video surveillance operations, enterprises become absorbed with mitigating the burden of an unstable foundation. Challenges that stem from this may include the direct risk of downtime or losing access to video – but other obstacles like failure to meet regulatory compliances, complexity in scaling, and ultimately lost revenue also pose a threat. Just as an architect must build on a solid foundation to ensure a building’s longevity, IT leaders need to approach their video surveillance with the future in mind. Can this server and storage foundation support growth? Will it crumble under pressure or unexpected circumstances? Is it secure?
Technology leaders can build this sustainable foundation by analyzing the various components that make up successful data management and taking time to understand the present and future needs of their enterprise. These include:
• Performance: IT leaders can determine performance requirements by assessing the number of video streams in their surveillance infrastructure, as well as the type of video data. Beyond the basics though, they should also consider how other applications impact their performance needs, such as VMS or analytics.
• Retention time and storage capacity: Some enterprises may need to hold onto video surveillance data for years, but others may only need it for a few days. And 58% of respondents in a recent survey asserted they had to let go of data that could still be valuable. With video surveillance, understanding retention time and storage needs help decision-makers to recognize the level of storage capacity their organization requires.
• Budget: Cost is always a factor in any business decision, and video surveillance is no different. Enterprises with a clear sense of their video surveillance storage needs will also have better insight into what they should expect to spend on a solution.
• Growth and change: All organizations evolve, and decision-makers should anticipate this when identifying a new video surveillance solution. If growth is a goal of the business, it may be worth selecting solutions with greater flexibility.
• Resilience: A security tool must be able to withstand unexpected obstacles – and video surveillance storage is no different. Enterprises must assess their tolerance for disruptions like lost or interrupted video. And with cybercrime on the rise – 42% of respondents in a recent survey reported being victims of a ransomware attack – the system’s ability to adapt to new cyberattacks also matters. For mission-critical data, this may become a make-or-break factor.
Combined, these insights allow IT leaders to determine the best blend of performance, scalability and cost to service their enterprise’s video surveillance storage needs. This allows enterprises to carefully consider the technologies available for this task, balancing the applications and benefits based on their specific needs.
Businesses will need to consider available infrastructure options and select what solution is right for their data and needs. Some of the most popular technology solutions for video surveillance foundations, along with their benefits and limitations, include:
• NVRs: Essentially an industry standard, these servers or workstations run video management software (VMS) and store recorded video onto internal disk drives. NVRs allow for high performance at a reduced cost, while also being simple to deploy for small environments, but are less resilient and tolerate fewer failures.
• Servers attached to an external storage system: Although this setup is one of the more commonly found systems in IT datacenters, it is usually expensive, complex to manage, and less resilient than other measures – performance often takes a hit during failures. Also, for this solution, the type of external storage system itself matters. For example, tape storage is often the least expensive, fastest, and most reliable option, with minimal human interaction required making it especially cost-effective.
• Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI): HCI has become the most popular way of deploying infrastructure in datacenters throughout the world. It offers the highest level of fault tolerance; even through drive failures, power supply failures, or network failures, HCI continues recording and maintains functionality for accessing video. It also reduces the on-premises hardware footprint, while still providing top performance. It’s important to determine if the HCI solution is designed for, and proven effective, in demanding video surveillance environments. It’s also generally more cost-effective in larger-scale environments.
• Cloud: Options range from private, to public, or a hybrid of both when it comes to the cloud. Cloud allows for a lot of growth and flexibility, but it’s significantly less secure than on-site, physical solutions. It’s also network dependent and can be expensive with costs to store your video, retrieve it, and use network bandwidth.
When decision-makers are choosing which infrastructure technology is right for them, they should also consider the lifecycle phases of their surveillance data. The industry typically supports only the hot ingest video and 30-90 days of storage, but this can leave customers with limited options and higher costs for a long-term solution. As the video ages and becomes less critical, cold storage solutions become an option since data will not need to be frequently retrieved. In addition to the options above, adding a secondary storage solution is the best way to support your video data throughout each phase of the lifecycle.
Most organizations aiming to ensure resilience, high-performance, retention, and other foundational needs will require a mixture of primary and secondary data management resources. As an example, a video surveillance provider chooses an installation of 15 NVRs that back up to a tape library through a file system gateway. The system’s storage capacity can easily be increased to meet new regulatory compliance requirements in the future. Not only is it easy to scale but it provides automated security features to keep video secure from ransomware or malware.
The acceleration of data-gathering and new, fast-changing regulatory issues face critical infrastructure challenges that are impacting the future of security sectors. Video surveillance systems will require technology solutions that will allow them to remain compliant while evolving to meet the fast-changing security threats. It’s important for security executives to prepare today by rethinking their approach and video surveillance infrastructure. An infrastructure that is cost-effective, secure, and highly scalable is the most adaptable and futureproof system possible.
