Reducing Video Surveillance Storage Costs with the IBM Cloud Object Storage

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Reducing Video Surveillance Storage Costs with the IBM Cloud Object Storage

As the use of camera security surveillance system grows due to increased security concerns, so the demand for the better image quality. Also the demand for the longer video retention times are growing due to the legal compliance. The increase in data produced due to higher image qualities and the longer retention means more data to be stored and archived at the storage level.

High Resolution Cameras, Longer Retention, No Worries

While the cost of recording devices is affordable, but the storage costs to meet the law enforcement regulations for evidence are more of concern. This leads to question “How can I reduce the Video Storage archiving costs without compromising the secured chain of custody for the evidence purpose?”

The Short answer is “Yes”. IBM Cloud Object Storage solves this problem by providing scalable solution at an affordable price.

What is the Solution?

IBM Storwize system is configured as the storage for keeping the live and near-line archiving surveillance storage content. Tiger Bridge from the Tiger Technology was configured on the Video Management Server (VMS) for moving the older content from the Storwize system volumes to the IBM Cloud Object Storage . Tiger Bridge is a secure and flexible software connector for Windows OS that transparently replicates and tiers data from a standard NTFS volume to a on-premise, off-premise target without affecting users, applications or workflows. IBM Cloud Object Storage was configured as the archiving storage for retaining the Video Surveillance content for longer retention periods. IBM Cloud Object Storage provides organizations the flexibility, scalability and simplicity required to store, manage and access today’s rapidly growing Video Surveillance data in a private, hybrid and public cloud environments.

This solution uses a modular and scalable architecture to address the growing data storage requirements. With them you get:

• IBM Storwize system for write intensive live recording and near-line archiving purpose.
• Tiger Bridge Connector for transparent data replication and tiering between IBM Storwize and Cloud Object Storage.
• IBM Cloud Object Storage  for archiving the content for longer retention purpose.
• Optimized cloud solutions for on-premises private, or hybrid cloud service providers.

How It Works?

IBM Storwize system volumes are presented to the Windows Recording servers and configured as the local volumes using standard NTFS file system for storing the live and archive data. Tiger Bridge scans the data on the NTFS volume and transparently replicates and tiers the data to the IBM Cloud Object Storage system based on the parameters configured at the Tiger connector. For example you can configure to move the data based on the accessed or modified time stamps of the video archives.

Data Migration: A back ground Tiger Bridge process which replicates and tiers the data transparently from the IBM Storwize system (NTFS Volume) on the VMS system to the IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Recall: If security desk client requests the data which is not resident on the IBM Storiwze system, Tiger Bridge will retrieve the data transparently from the IBM Cloud Object Storage and streams the data to the security viewer without any loss of video frames.

Where it can be deployed?

 Our time-tested solutions turn storage challenges into business advantage by reducing storage costs while reliably supporting both traditional and emerging cloud-born video surveillance workloads.

Below are the some use-cases, which will benefit from the IBM Cloud Object Storage solutions:

• Airport, Metro railway stations and city surveillance systems with longer retention requirements
• Cloud Service Providers (CSP) for hosting and providing the cloud based video surveillance solutions.
• Law enforcement departments looking for body camera solutions.

The IBM Storage Video Surveillance solution offers a modular and cost effective multi-tier cloud storage architecture to meet the next-generation video surveillance technologies.