VIDEO SURVEILLANCE

Technological innovations often follow a predictable path from miracle to albatross. In the beginning, we are trying to solve a problem that seems impossible to address with existing technology. Then, there’s some huge breakthrough. The impossible becomes possible—a miraculous and exciting event. Take your pick of examples: the advent of the personal computer, social media, the smartphone, and more. Eventually the novelty wears off, prices come down, explosive growth ensues, and we start to confront unanticipated consequences.

Growing challenges of video cloud storage

Surveillance video is following this same arc. The number of security cameras is growing. Cities like New York have 235 cameras per square mile, though that’s small in comparison to Delhi, India, which has 1,490. The proliferation of cameras, especially in the corporate sector, has caused a massive data storage challenge. Video surveillance creates an enormous amount of data, which must be stored securely and in compliance with a range of regulations. The data itself creates risk in terms of legal liability and reputation.

Solutions like tape and network-attached storage (NAS) are no longer practical. Nor do they do well with the day-to-day work of managing surveillance. The video exists for the purpose of security, so the data storage needs to support these physical security objectives, like easy remote monitoring of facilities, protecting multiple locations, and rapid access to footage when needed.

This article looks at how video cloud storage addresses the challenges and risks inherent in generating video surveillance data. It explores issues like the efficiency of file management, data security, compliance, and, of course, cost. As more organizations adopt video cloud storage for surveillance, they are finding the technology to be a problem-solver on multiple fronts.

Exploring solutions for your digital assets through video cloud storage

As digital surveillance video data continues to grow, the storage industry's solutions to accommodate expanding archives is also growing.

• Linear Tape Open (LTO) is an option that suits some business needs. This form of tape can hold up to 18 TB of data in a compact plastic cassette. It was developed in 2000 by the LTO Consortium, which includes Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and Quantum.

  It’s relatively inexpensive, but tape is cumbersome. It’s also vulnerable. Tapes can get damaged, lost, or stolen. Unless you’re backing up the tapes and storing them in separate locations, it’s not secure. It’s also time-consuming to find video footage quickly and view it on demand with tape.

• Network-attached storage (NAS) hardware is another popular choice for storing video surveillance files. You get fast search and replay of video clips. Plus, NAS solutions are scalable; you just have to add hardware units to an existing array.

  The downside is that you are running on-premises storage, so the support is on you. And, unless you set up mirror sites, your video archive is vulnerable to disasters and malicious actors. It’s also expensive. Given the rate at which video files pile up, you’re going to be buying a lot of NAS hardware to keep up with the volume.

• Video cloud storage offers a compelling solution to address the growing needs around video surveillance storage. With the cloud, you get essentially infinite capacity, with immediate scalability. You can arrange for geographic diversity so your video is not all in one place. There’s no capital expense (CapEx) for setting up your cloud storage, and you don’t have to maintain the physical hardware. It’s a good proposition, overall, though not all cloud video storage solutions are of equal utility.

Understanding the basics of video cloud storage

In theory, any cloud storage service can be video cloud storage. All you have to do is copy your video files over to a cloud repository and you’re done. Except, you’re not. In reality, a cloud video storage solution will offer a number of basic functions. These include:

• Integration with video management systems (VMSs)—The cloud storage provider is connected to the VMS, which ingests feeds from all the security cameras.

• Remote access—Most on-premises video storage solutions require users to be on-site if they want to view video files. Cloud video storage usually enables remote viewing and file access.

• Video data organizing—The video cloud storage solution will provide some way to organize the video, such as by date, location, and camera. This way, users and admins can find video files with relative ease.

• Search—Users should be able to search for video with specific and filterable criteria, such as date, time, location, camera, and so forth to be able to recall specific footage when needed.

• Integration with facial recognition software—Not all solutions include this, but increasingly, consumers of video surveillance want to identify who is on camera.

• Data policy and governance—In most cases, the video cloud storage solution will allow for data policies, such as automatic retention for set periods of time.

The role of video cloud storage in modern business operations

Video cloud storage plays a role in several areas of business operations. Physical security is one of the most important and common uses. This involves using video surveillance to monitor physical premises to catch intruders or other bad actors so they can be apprehended by law enforcement.

Theft prevention is another operational use of video surveillance. Cameras can spot thieves, recording their crimes so they can be arrested—either in real time or at a later date. Video surveillance can also bolster safety, capturing situations that are unsafe so that people can be warned or trained to avoid them in the future, e.g., overloading a forklift.

For some companies, insurance carriers insist on surveillance video so they can assess what happened in the event of a claim, e.g., a worksite injury or fire. Government agencies, such as those that deal with workplace safety, may have similar requirements. In some cases, the insurance company may require the policy holder to integrate its video surveillance with emergency services agencies.

Cloud video storage is a useful solution in each of these use cases. Companies need rapid, accurate access to the video. They need to be supremely confident that video will be stored reliably and remain available for viewing if needed at any time during the data retention period. The cloud favors these requirements.

Enhancing video surveillance storage with cloud solutions

Cloud solutions are becoming a non-negotiable element of video surveillance. Without the cloud, it can be complex, bordering on impossible, to arrange for centralized storage of surveillance video from multiple locations, each with dozens or even hundreds of cameras. And, if you do set that up on-premises, it’s going to be expensive, with the bulk of that cost coming from upfront CapEx costs.

The cloud offers a cost-effective way to handle these challenges.

Securing digital assets: the importance of reliable video cloud storage

Surveillance video needs strong security, for several reasons. The main issue is that video is a notorious double-edge commodity when viewed from the perspective of risk. In the wrong hands, video can be a source of legal liability, compliance problems, and reputation damage, e.g., if it captures negligent employee behavior that causes someone to be injured. Video also shows details of operations that criminals, such as social engineering hackers, can exploit to penetrate a company’s defenses.

Additionally, it’s critical to be able to retain video for later use. If an incident, such as an industrial accident, is on video, that video can be essential for regulatory and legal issues arising from the incident. If that video disappears, due to a ransomware attack or even just basic incompetence, its loss can compound the legal and compliance problems. For these reasons, robust data retention, preferably in multiple cloud sites, is a good practice to adopt. Some industries even have regulatory standards for how surveillance video must be kept, determining length of retention, format, and speed of retrieval.

Key features to look for in video cloud storage platforms

What should you look for in a video cloud storage platform that supports your video surveillance solution? A platform that features cloud object storage is a good start. It should be secure, economical, flexible, and efficient. It needs to enable high performance playback and fast disaster recovery, as well.

Customizable storage plans to fit every business size

No two video surveillance setups are the same. For this reason, video cloud storage platforms that offer customizable plans and configurations deserve strong consideration. Flexibility and scalability are key. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can multiply the video surveillance footprint overnight while also adding new VMS systems into the mix. The right video cloud storage platform will adapt to such rapid changes and scale with relative ease.

Cloud storage pricing also matters in this context. A change in scale or configuration should not trigger an unexpected or disproportionate price increase. Nor should changes in practices. If data migration and replication are part of your workload, the right platform will not charge for data egress fees, which are unfortunately common and quite costly.

Advanced encryption for enhanced security

Data security is a high priority when storing surveillance video files. Encryption of video data is essential. We offer this security countermeasure with our Wasabi Surveillance Cloud product. Wasabi always encrypts object data before it is written to disk using an AES256-bit key. The encryption makes it effectively impossible for a malicious actor to view surveillance video.

Immutability is a further security countermeasure provided by cloud object storage. Using cryptography and related technology, immutable storage, such as Wasabi Object Lock, makes it impossible for anyone to modify or delete video data from their cloud storage. This is a strong defense against ransomware and other malicious activities that rely on encrypting stolen data (modification) or threatening with deletion.

Efficient file management and easy access

A cloud video storage platform for surveillance video will inevitably sit atop thousands upon thousands of files, some of which can be measured in terabytes. Managing those files should not be a burden. Ideally working invisibly in the background, the cloud video storage platform should enable efficient file management. Tasks like replication and moving from on-premises systems to the cloud should be seamless and easy to perform. Then, when it’s time to view a file stored in the cloud, access should be similarly efficient and fast.

People at different levels of the organization will want to know how and what the platform is doing. A good cloud video storage platform will provide real time data analytics and reporting. Wasabi, for example, lets admins quickly run reports on overall account usage and individual storage bucket usage, among other metrics of platform use.

Integration capabilities with existing business tools

A cloud video storage platform for surveillance is just one element of a bigger system for video surveillance and security in general. The platform has to have integration capabilities with other components of the video surveillance system, security systems, and other business tools. For example, Wasabi integrates with Milestone video surveillance solutions, as well as Digital Watchdog and many others. Wasabi also integrates with Veeam backup software, among other backup and recovery partners, allowing it to work cohesively with an organization's complete data security solution.

Implementing video cloud storage in your business

What’s the best way to go about implementing video cloud storage? Part of the process necessarily starts before you select a vendor. Your needs assessment should drive your thinking, followed by implementation and then migration of digital assets to the cloud.

Assessing your business’s storage needs

The first step is to assess your organization’s video cloud storage needs. The reflexive approach is to think in terms of terabytes. This is natural, given the decades of stress we’ve all had over procuring enough storage to accommodate our needs until the next procurement cycle comes along. With the cloud, though, that’s not necessary; there is no limit to how much you can store. What you will pay for that storage is the question to be asking at the needs assessment stage.

What’s arguably more important is an assessment of how a video cloud storage platform will fit in your general video infrastructure and broader IT estate. What will the integrations be? Who will maintain them? Are you going into business with companies you don’t know? How much complexity do you want to deal with? The answers to these questions will guide your thinking about the actual implementation.

Choosing the right video cloud storage provider

We've already explored some of the preferred features of a cloud storage provider that will house all of your digital assets. Going further, choosing the right provider will ideally be a process that aligns with financial planning and general business strategy. Your needs will inevitably change, so a good provider will be one that can support those changes, not impede them. For example, if your business goes from a central location to multiple branches, will the provider help or hinder that transition?

Migrating digital assets to the cloud: best practices

As you implement your video cloud storage platform, the moment will come when it’s time to start migrating your digital assets to the cloud. This should be a relatively straightforward process, but it won’t be simply pushing a button. Chances are, you will be dealing with massive amounts of data. The timing of the migration matters. You will find yourself coordinating with other departments, such as network management, to move all that data in such a way that it doesn’t impair other areas of the business by clogging the network, and so forth.

Depending on the amount of video you need to migrate, your organization may consider using a data transfer tool. These can be physical, like our data transfer appliance Wasabi Ball, or they can be virtual, such as a direct connection from your local data center to the cloud storage region of your choosing. These tools can drastically speed up the (often slow) ingest process and bypass the public Internet altogether, preserving bandwidth for other critical applications.

Future trends in video cloud storage

What’s coming in the future for video cloud storage? It’s impossible to know for sure, but a few trends are already evident. Artificial intelligence (AI) will likely have an impact on the sector, as well as edge computing and other innovations.

The rise of AI-driven video analysis

AI is already changing the way we interact with video. Wasabi AiR, for instance, creates a searchable auto-generated index of video files. It uses AI to auto-tag metadata. Automated translation is another feature enhanced by AI in AiR. It is still early in the lifecycle of these technologies. In the future, AI will likely deliver improved facial recognition along with integrations with external data sources, such as threat intelligence feeds.

Embracing edge computing for faster access

Edge computing, which places data closer to end users with small data centers, will almost certainly affect video cloud storage in the future. The advantage of the edge is that access to video files is almost always faster than is possible with core hyperscale data centers. To make the edge work for video cloud storage, it's first necessary to create an edge cloud, which replicates the cloud’s software architecture, only with a reversal of the cloud’s design principles. Instead of centralizing storage in big data centers, which is the mainstream public cloud approach, an edge cloud distributes video files to the closest available edge data center. To the end user, however, this is invisible. The cloud interface abstracts the details of where the files are stored.

Innovations in storage technology and security

Storage companies and cloud vendors are relentlessly innovating. What’s coming? The probability is high that we will see gains in storage performance and density. We will likely see more AI-driven, integrative solutions that pull together physical and cyber security, fraud protection, law enforcement, and compliance. All of these fields increasingly depend on video surveillance, and it stands to reason that they will begin to collate and work closer together in the future.

Making the move to cloud video storage

If you’re storing your video files on-premises, this might be a good moment to think about cloud video storage. Making the move will rid you of the headache of procuring and supporting costly NAS and tape solutions. It’s important to think carefully about the provider, especially for surveillance video. You can expose yourself to risk if you don’t choose wisely and plan the migration carefully. If you make the move, though, you’ll find yourself in a world where scalability is not a concern and the platform will adapt to whatever changes your organization throws its way.