“IP cameras are kind of an integration of the camera itself plus analog video encoders. In one piece of equipment, you have both the video, the camera itself and the video compression board,” says Guy Shahmoon, a product manager for Verint. “The devices are becoming smarter. With the storage and analytics on the edge they are really starting to become almost self-contained devices.”
Sending less data less often from camera locations fulfills the objective of avoiding bandwidth constraints and overburdening the network. However, as Shahmoon points out, there are numerous other advantages to edge devices, including a secondary reason for decentralized storage.
“Not only can edge devices compress the video and send it over the network, but in cases where the link is broken for different reasons, they will start to record the video locally. This is a very powerful solution,” he says. “In addition, being IT-friendly provides easy maintenance for these devices. Another plus is lower power consumption, meaning edge devices are more ‘green’ and environmentally friendly.”
Edge devices place an incumbent challenge on campus security personnel to convince other stakeholders that the typically higher cost for the equipment can be offset by long-term gains. Another hurdle is that the complexity of the hardware and software can make it difficult to integrate the devices such that all features and advantages can be fully realized. Two organizations – ONVIF and PSIA – have been established to contend with this issue.
“We’re still not there with the ONVIF/PSIA protocol,” says Shahmoon. “It’s kind of on the side where usually the protocol that is being used to integrate the edge device to the VMS is still the proprietary one from each manufacturer. But this will evolve. In the future, we will definitely see more edge device manufacturers supporting ONVIF and PSIA. This will eventually help and ease the integration, and should make it more reliable and seamless.”
Storage Solutions Maintain Data
Early on in the introduction of digital video and later networked video, where and how to store all that data presented numerous challenges. The capacity of hard drives was limited with the largest ones being very expensive. There were also the issues of failure rates and backup or redundancy. Today, capacity has risen dramatically to keep pace with increasing storage demands while prices have continued to plummet.
“Appliances delivering integrated IP- storage area network [SAN] technology are now a mature part of the physical security market,” says Jeff Whitney, vice president of marketing for Intransa. “Appliances, properly executed, can simplify the effort and reduce the cost of installation and ongoing operation of a physical security solution, while improving overall system performance.”
One of the key developments in the area of storage has been the introduction of solutions specifically designed and engineered for the functionality and rigors of video surveillance. Much trial and tribulation transpired attempting to use devices intended for computing or other purposes rather than security. Today’s storage appliances aim to cover many bases.
“The best appliances are designed to offer the simplicity of a DVR, eliminating hundred
s of potential commodity server and storage choices, and optimized specifically for physical security requirements,” says Whitney. “Appliances continue to grow in power and can simultaneously support other applications like access control and video analytics on a single platform. That further reduces complexity and cost.”
In many projects, storage can represent as much as half the cost of a video surveillance system, which means it is also where campuses can save the most. As Whitney describes, there are a host of other benefits to be had with storage appliances as well.
“Eliminating the bench time needed to integrate servers, storage, components, operating systems and application software into a single, functioning platform with an appliance, integrators are able to reduce their installation costs,” he says. “Appliance solutions are also able to be easily upgraded, plugging in additional capacity without halting operations.”
Analytics Allow for Smarter Alerts
As the number of cameras and surveillance systems continues to grow and proliferate at an unprecedented pace, it is becoming more apparent that steps must be taken to better organize, analyze and evaluate all the captured video data. Humans are ill-equipped to monitor so much information on their own. Fortunately, programmers have been busy creating advanced algorithms to make sense of all this video “noise” in the form of video analytics.
“Video analytics is a form of machine vision or computer vision that evolved from being able to look at or pick out objects and still images to the ability to do it with video that is rapidly moving images going through the machine,” says Craig Chambers , CEO of Cernium. “We tend to think of video analytics as higher end functionality that really allows you to do a full assessment of what the objects are in a scene and what they’re up to.”
