Unlike cyber and network security where IT technology adoption is common, physical security is largely an analog world of unconnected technology islands. Enter IP storage, a technology whose time has come within manufacturers' physical security environments.
Internet Protocol (IP) storage link data storage devices over a network and transfers data by carrying SCSI commands over IP networks. It is known as a reliable and inexpensive data transfer alternative. In the video surveillance market, IP storage reduces the time and cost of implementing CCTV DVR upgrades and optimizing video surveillance IP retention by bringing RAID protection and hot-swap components to eliminate video loss.
IP cameras were the first to enter the network security market. Although carrying a higher unit price than their analog counterparts, IP cameras offer better resolution and imaging capabilities and reduce the number of cameras, resulting in superior coverage. Network video recorders (NVRs) were developed to record the imagery from these IP devices, recording multiple digital video streams with larger, higher resolution files requiring more network bandwidth and storage. A wide variety of vendors including camera, NVR, video management system, physical security, information managers, video analytics and product have sprung up as part of a new ecosystem, accounting for as much as 15% of the surveillance market.
Compared with coax cabling used by most CCTV surveillance systems, IP offers a lower cost per foot of infrastructure including less expensive cabling, reduced installation costs and easier troubleshooting. In addition IP enables the introduction of new benefits and features for retail, supply chain and manufacturing monitoring, access control, life safety, biometrics and authentication systems.
Digital benefits are multiplied by the increased reliability and lower costs that IP and storage consolidation bring to the technology islands of CCTV and DVRs. In fact, DVRs are not unlike the IT world of the 1980s with individual stand alone systems the order of the day.
DVRs are typically based on a PC-grade motherboard, power supply and one to four disk drives, combined with an analog-to-digital converter. Most lack RAID support and fewer still offer hot-swap components or drives, so that when a component fails the entire DVR stops recording and video is lost from all attached cameras.
More than 50% of DVRs will fail in their lifetime and will be returned to the manufacturer for repair or replacement. And when the DVR leaves the premises, the video goes with it. That leaves the organization at risk of SOX, HIPPAA and other compliance and legal issues should the information and video it contains make it onto a social networking site, be used in identity theft, or be otherwise viewed and distributed in an unauthorized manner.
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