Whether youre in the market for a new video surveillance system or want to make sure yours is up to par data storage capabilities are crucial Colleges K-12 schools and hospitals continue to face a complex and growing landscape of threats to student faculty staff patient and visitor safety across their campuses Yes physical and sexual assaults are top-of-mind but security and IT professionals must also account for hate crimes protests sporting event incidents access by unauthorized individuals theft destruction and defacing of property among other things Many campuses themselves are the size of small cities and many other campuses border population centers that have their own problems with crime Last year US hospitals experienced an increase in violent crime according to the latest International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety IAHSS Foundation Healthcare Crime Survey results The assault rate increased from 93 incidents per 100 beds in 2016 to 117 in 2018 the highest rate IAHSS has recorded since it began collecting crime data in 2012 For K-12 public schools according to the 2018 Indicators of School Crime and Safety survey although the percentage of reported crimes were lower during the 2015-2016 school year than in every prior survey year 79 still recorded one or more incidents of violence theft or other crimes amounting to 14 million crimes And while overall crimes reported on US college campuses fell between 2001 and 2016 the number rose by 6 between 2014 and 2016 the last year statistics were available More recently other threats have spiked The Anti-Defamation League ADL reported white supremacy propaganda increased 182 last year while tracking 319 such incidents on 212 college and university campuses In April and May of 2019 alone there were at least four college campus shootings Join guest speaker Gary L Sigrist Jr for an Educational Series webinar on January 17 2020 at 2 PM ET Attendees will learn about the critical considerations when preparing for active threats and taking a multi-faceted approach to address all potential scenarios Register now The bottom line is there is no shortage of incidents that campus leaders must prepare for manage and analyze after the fact and video surveillance remains core to those efforts While a typical campus video surveillance system includes cameras storage servers networking and software it is the storage component that is often overlooked when it comes to meeting current and future campus safety needs The stakes are high storage makes up a significant cost component of video surveillance systems which means as security requirements scale storage must be efficiently managed and deployed For campus decision-makers evaluating whether their video storage strategy and systems are prepared for current and future needs there are several key considerations 1 Reliability Interruptions in the flow of data can put lives and property at risk Data loss can also be a liability in court where video surveillance footage is often relied upon as evidence In Campus Safetys 2019 Video Surveillance survey two out of three respondents cited video surveillance downtime or data loss as having a big impact with an additional 42 stating the impact was moderate 2 Speed The volume of data isnt the only factor to consider In video surveillance speed is critical Most off-the-shelf video surveillance solutions come with cheap white-box storage systems that are prone to breakdowns and outages If the success of your security system depends on 100 availability an outage of any size can be catastrophic Not to mention these solutions often cant support expanding video ingest and retrieval needs especially if a drive fails Speed is critical to video surveillance If your storage cant keep up with your video you could drop frames and lose data 3 Scalability For many higher ed institutions cloud computing solutions offer the promise of cloud elasticity the ability to seamlessly scale compute and storage up or down on demand But that flexibility can come at a cost For example some police departments that have deployed body-worn cameras in the cloud now find themselves with high monthly bills which can top as much as 005 per gigabyte per month plus additional cost per gigabyte when they exceed their quotas And thats just the cost of storage There are more charges for reading and restoring that data While some campuses may not have to address body-worn camera video costs it is still worth noting that because cloud prices are generally static your costs will only increase as you grow In contrast the cost for on-premises solutions declines an average of 30 to 35 per year which can make this option more scalable from a cost perspective 4 Cost While there have been significant improvements in the effectiveness of video surveillance HD cameras longer retention times etc campuses are at risk of receiving an unpleasant surprise when video storage bills arrive Because video is unstructured data it requires special storage that can be expensive if not addressed the right way Higher resolutions for video require more storage as you move through the continuum from traditional standard-definition cameras to HD cameras at 1 megapixel 2 megapixels and up Given that data storage can be a significant contribution to the total cost of a typical video surveillance solution more than the cameras servers networking or software alone it is easy to see how costs can spin out of control if the wrong storage decisions are made 5 Overhead Beyond costs associated with the storage itself there are management overhead investments to consider as well Many campuses that still rely on a digital video recorder DVR or a network video recorder NVR for video surveillance storage will eventually need to add more boxes A traditional DVR-based or NVR-based infrastructure with stacks of storage devices requires a massive amount of management overhead Every time you add cameras or need to upgrade your retention policies youll need to install even more storage devices just to avoid running out of capacity Before you know it your security teams are spending more time managing back-end infrastructure and less time doing their jobs Its not efficient for your security professionals and its a waste of resources for the organization Finally when it comes to keeping people safe video surveillance is so much more than perimeter security DVR- or NVR-based infrastructures can be a huge roadblock to incorporating new video technologies such as video analytics preventing you from getting the most value out of your video data 6 Integration More than a third of CS survey respondents find video integration with other public safety security systems to be extremely challenging or very challenging Data storage and sharing are particularly critical for higher education institutions which must often work side by side with local law enforcement in responding to incidents that occur in and around campus and having the ability to share video as needed for quick incident resolution and follow-up investigation and evidence Video surveillance data portability between cloud and on-premises systems and across campus and local law enforcement agencies is necessary to ensure a rapid effective and coordinated response Campus IT and security executives weighing strategies and investments for 2020 video surveillance benefit from understanding the pros and cons of their storage options before embarking down one path Jake Turner is the solutions engineering director for NetApp