“Fortunately, these same IT standards are ideally suited for open systems video surveillance systems. The adoption of mainstream standards means that vendors can concentrate on their specific strengths, namely software, cameras, switches and server/storage infrastructure. Naturally there is a responsibility for open system vendor to make test products so that interoperability is proven in the labs and not in the field.”  

Caswell sees compression as a key element of storage solutions moving forward.

“Compression is a key technology that allows customers to optimize video quality and manage storage needs,” he says. “We will continue to see improvements in compression, such as H.264, but my expectation is that the growth in cameras, resolution and retention times will dominate the overall market and drive increased storage requirements.”

Interestingly, and probably correctly, Caswell takes an opposite position to others when it comes to analytics. He thinks analytics will not lead to a decrease is storage space but an increase.

“Intelligent video content analysis always benefits from higher resolution and higher frame rates. All of these factors drive increased storage requirements, not less,” Caswell explains.

And according to Caswell, things will not be cut and dried when it comes to centralised or distributed architecture.

“It won’t be an either/or world,” he says. “We’ll see both centralised and distributed environments because of the tremendous limitation that the WAN places on surveillance systems. Once you realize that a single camera can fill a T1 line, it becomes imperative to locate video recording close to the cameras.

“Centralized systems are perfect for LAN-based systems typically found in large centralized environments such as airports, prisons and casinos. Distributed systems are often found in rail stations, schools and enterprise buildings where WAN connections are the norm. This is why video as a service (VAAS) has not succeeded so far – it is simply too difficult to ship video across a WAN with any time sensitivity or resolution.

“I think onboard camera storage is a great idea for distributed applications where expensive WAN connections would be required for a centralized system to work,” Caswell continues.

“It satisfies the general rule that recording should occur near the cameras although it certainly has some drawbacks, such as limited retention times, a single point of failure design and the fact that any local disaster or vandalism would compromise the system.”

From Caswell’s point of view, the single greatest challenge of surveillance storage solutions is to meet increased storage needs without exceeding customer budgetary limitations for acquisition costs and management costs.

“Virtualization is a key technology that can help bridge the gap,” he explains. “Storage providers that incorporate virtualization technology can reduce acquisition costs by up to 25 per cent and operational costs by up to 40 per cent. With storage representing such a high cost component of installations, virtualization represents an important tool for resellers and customers looking to meet budgetary constraints.” 

“If I was using current technology to build a storage solution for a 100 camera installation requiring 40TB of storage, then I’d use four Pivot3 CloudBank appliances that provide high-availability storage with no single point of failure and deploy virtualization to eliminate $15K of server hardware.

“This system is completely standards-based and works with open system video management software from leading companies such as Genetec, Milestone and OnSSI,” Caswell explains.

“Complete failover protection is provided free for both server and storage components and the self-healing nature of the product ensures that customers will not suffer video recording or access interruptions and that reseller support costs are minimized.”

Sony Asia Pacific’s regional product manager, Mark Franklin, says the percentage of overall cost of a storage system taken up by storage depends on how the systems is being managed.

“Storage needs to be managed to minimise the cost ratio and high storage costs can occur only if intelligent cameras and storage management are not used in a video security system,’ explains Franklin.

“If intelligent motion detection (IMD) cameras are used, storage costs can be minimised. For example, intelligent cameras only tell an NVR to record what is needed. The emphasis should be in camera infrastructure, (camera) edge storage and analytics technology.”

Franklin takes a practical approach to the ideal storage solution for video surveillance technology.

“Of proprietary, off-the-shelf or a combination, the best will be whatever gives the best outcome for an application,” says Franklin.

“Proprietary storage management features in cameras and recorders can reduce storage costs. Also, iSCSI storage is popular, performs well, and is not proprietary.”

And Franklin says developments like H.264 have made a real difference, with a 40 per cent improvement over MPEG-4 Part 2. Analytics too, have a major role to play.

“Yes – analytics is important,” Franklin explains. “Sony’s IMD is recommended as it eliminates random movement over 15 frames removing many annoying false alarms and reducing storage space required. If IMD is used, then major reduction in HDD space is achievable as 24/7 recording is not needed.” 

From Franklin’s perspective, the single greatest challenge for video storage solutions designers moving forward is education.

“Educating system designers to plan video security systems efficiently, avoiding high storage costs, particularly if IMD and edge storage are incorporated – that’s the challenge,” he explains.

For Franklin, a current top-line solution installed using the latest technology would include intelligent motion detection (IMD), a camera with edge storage for failover and use of an NVR with local iSCSI external archiving.

“This configuration gives maximum performance and minimizes storage costs,” Franklin explains.

At IndigoVision, product manager, Alex Swanson, explains that when it comes to cost of storage as a percentage of total surveillance system cost there’s plenty of variation.

“It can vary a lot but cost of storage can be up to 50 per cent of the overall cost,” Swanson explains. “This is not too high a proportion. There is always latent demand for more recorded data. This means better quality video, higher frame rates and video being retained for longer periods. Network solutions are simply enabling users demand for ever more recordings.

“If I was using current technology to build a storage solution for a 100 camera installation requiring 40TB of storage, then I’d use four Pivot3 CloudBank appliances that provide high-availability storage with no single point of failure and deploy virtualization to eliminate $15K of server hardware”

As far as use of off-the-shelf gear in concerned, Swanson thinks proprietary hardware has the edge.

“Managing security recordings requires proprietary specialised software and hardware,” he explains. “The volumes of data involved and the relentless nature of video data means that standard hard disks and standard file management software are simply not good enough to provide a robust surveillance solution.

“Choice of compression technology is crucial. The only suitable compression standard for HD video is H.264,” Swanson says. “The H.264 standard is very large and contains many tools for specialist forms of compression. This standard should meet the needs of the security market for several years to come.

“The use of analytics to either trigger specific recordings rather than rely on 24 hour recording is another important way of reducing overall storage. In addition, analytics can be used to vary frame rate so that recordings use a low frame rate when there is no motion and only jump to full frame rate when there is motion.”

Swanson believes that different operational requirements will lead to different video storage solutions.

“At IndigoVision we see distributed storage as the way forward. The advantages are that data is not needlessly transported across the core of a network back to a central storage facility,” he explains.

“This leads to lower network costs – both in terms of the capital cost of core network switches and in the network costs of any leased WAN network links.

“Around 99 per cent of recorded video is never looked at. Why pay for this to be transported across your network? The only possible reason would be physical security of disks which might be easier to arrange in a central storage location.”

Swanson says he sees onboard storage as only suited for smaller locations.

“By all means distribute the storage out to the same network segment as the cameras in the form of small capacity NVRs but the storage still needs to be a properly managed recording solution rather than a flash card and some on-camera software,” he says.

As far as the major challenge moving forward, Swanson sees this as meeting the latent demand for ever more recording performance from end users.

“In the same way users are demanding higher resolutions and frame rates for live video, the video storage part of the solution has to keep up as well. This is coupled with ever larger numbers of cameras on a given project,” Swanson explains.

And Swanson’s take on the ideal solution is practical. It includes H.264 IP cameras or codecs for migrating existing analog cameras, dedicated NVRs with 24x7 surveillance rated hard disks and specialised recording management software. There’s also a simple to use video management software front-end that allows tight integration of live and recorded video.

“All three components can be sourced from different companies but to get a tightly integrated set of features that meets the operational needs of the security market, a single vendor solution is best,” he says.

Western Digital’s regional marketing manager, enterprise & CE, Patrick Lo, says the overall cost of storage as part of an overall solution really depends on what kind of surveillance system applications (stand-alone system or big NVR-Enterprise storage RAID system).

“It also depends on the number of drives inside of the system - 1, 2, 4 or more HDDs,” Lo explains. “In general, we probably can say storage consumes about 25-50 per cent of the total cost of the system.

“This is not too high a proportion due to the fact that HDDs now can provide better systems/solutions than when VCRs were used. Applications and resolution have been able to become more advanced due to the capability of the systems utilizing HDDs. An analogy is the horse-drawn buggy vs the automobile. The horse drawn buggy provides the same fundamental capabilities (faster transportation than walking), but the automobile has taken over, leveraging much of the same infrastructure that the buggies used – in this case, roads.

“The ideal storage solution obviously depends on what is expected of the system,” says Lo. “Typically, off the shelf solutions can provide a certain amount of capability leveraging off the shelf commodity costs/prices.

“If the system is supposed to do something unique that COTS (common off the shelf) components can’t provide, then a proprietary solution will have to be developed. The other experience is that for the big projects (such as airport, train-station) are mostly using proprietary for some advanced features requests.”

Lo agrees there is pressure on storage to continue growing in modern surveillance systems and he says multiple variables will play a part.

“The functionality of cameras (HD, NightVision, etc…) being used in a given solution and the duration of video retention will determine how much storage capacity is required. Compression of the video being stored is important, and drive capacities (the maximum is currently 2TB).

“Then there’s the compression technology used, mega-pixels in cameras, number of cameras in a system, frame-rate and length archiving required. There are a lot of variables.”

“It’s even more important to be able to transport the captured video from the camera to the system,” Lo explains. “Transporting raw video versus compressed video can/will require bigger pipes to move the data, even before it gets to the HDD.

Lo agrees analytics play a significant role.

“In order to analyse video, you need to have it stored on the system’s HDDs,” Lo says. “Depending on the type of analytics being done, you might actually need more HDD space than usual. For example, what if you were capturing data on half of the end caps in a retail store to determine the demographics of the persons looking at the products? Does the user pick the product up, read the back of the product, and then put it back? Do they pick it up and put in their carts?”

And when it comes to local vs centralised storage, Lo says both configurations play a role.

“It depends,” he explains. “Local storage can provide quicker access to the data from a local location. Centralized storage can often provide economies of scale and better utilization than localized storage.

“Many of the large “search” type web companies and content delivery networks are trying to determine this question as well and typically have both local and centralized storage at this moment.”

Lo agrees with some of the others that storage on the camera is only suited to smaller solutions, and for him the major question would be how people access the data on the SDHC cameras.

“You’ll need to plug them in one at a time to a computer to access the data,” he says. “Or, you’ll have to create a network to be able to access the data on each card, which probably minimizes the value of the on-board storage, in larger deployments.”

Not surprisingly, Lo says price and performance are the key challenges of the future. 

“Customers want easier to use systems with greater capabilities at lower prices,” he explains.

“Analytics can be used to vary frame rate so that recordings use a low frame rate when there is no motion and only jump to full frame rate when there is motion”