In the Republic of Ireland, Shannon Airport reports that its surveillance storage system is significantly reducing rack space, power and cooling.
Over the last decade, the Glasgow-based installer Visual Management Systems has fitted Shannon with an integrated security system including over 200 CCTV cameras, 70 per cent of which are mega-pixel high definition cameras alongside integrated facility management systems. After a recent upgrade from analogue to digital high definition (HD) CCTV, Visual Management Systems and Shannon sought to revaluate how sensitive and critical security video is viewed, analysed and retained.
John Francis, Security Manager for Shannon said: “The move from our legacy CCTV to the new AXIS HD cameras enhanced our security surveillance capability, but also led to a massive increase in capacity for our video storage along with greater performance requirement. The old NAS boxes, although adequate for the old analogue system, were also starting to show their age which prompted us to revaluate and select a better long term video storage platform.”
With limited rack space within its comms room and a need for high throughput, continuous writes and absolute reliability, Visual Management Systems and Shannon looked at options. As Jay Shields, Managing Director for Visual Management Systems said: “In this type of scenario where CCTV reliability is critical, COLDSTORE is a particularly good fit and the high density, low power consumption appliance provides a number of additional benefits.”
IP video transmission and storage product company Veracity’s COLDSTORE is a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system designed for video surveillance systems requiring long duration archives. The Linear Array of Idle Disks (LAID) technology combined with Sequential disk Filing System (S.F.S) offers a 90 per cent power saving versus RAID, with much higher reliability, it is claimed, and failover that removes the need for time-consuming rebuilds of failed drives by instead using instant hot swap disks, the makers say. Offered as a 3U high, 120TB unit that uses only 0.5w per Terabyte, COLDSTORE will also extend the life of hard disk drives, reduce the air-conditioning required in the server room and cut the cost of back-up UPS, according tothe company.
COLDSTORE integrates with TITAN VISION, the PSIM from Visual Management Systems, the PSIM running at Shannon Airport. TITAN VISION controls disparate security systems including video surveillance, access control, video analytic intrusion detection, fire and safety and building management. The PSIM also offers disaster recovery, business continuity and redundant operation. This includes backup systems such as servers, databases and network for automatic transfer of control room operation.
Five COLDSTORE appliances are recording video footage from over 200 cameras including HD and analogue. The implementation of over 300TB with the potential for a further 300TB future expansion has reduced the required rack space by 40 per cent and power consumption by 70pc, including a reduction on the workload of attached HVAC systems within the comms room.
John Francis said: “TITAN VISION and COLDSTORE have easily met and surpassed our expectations. The additional features such as the ability to swap-out disks whenever we need, and no data loss on disk failure are key for us and ensure that we are able to deliver a reliable and scalable storage environment suitable for all our security video requirements.”
