Page 43 - Security Today, November/December 2018

solutions are not designed to withstand the data generated from IoT sensors, new video uses and enterprise-class video de- ployments and therefore often fall short of fulfilling the goals of smart city initiatives. What all this leads to is an increase in cost and complexity, and at worst case, poorly planned deployments that create an over- all inability of security and video surveil- lance systems to do the job they were ini- tially designed to do.
A Smarter Approach
The biggest challenge with these programs is how to effectively store and manage captured video and aligned data, and be- cause the perceived value of video has increased, stakeholders must ensure this critical information is protected. Instances in which live or recorded video becomes inaccessible and data is lost can lead to compliance issues, vulnerabilities and op- erational shutdowns. Therefore, assuring the protection of video data is paramount to any smart city initiative.
Technologies once traditionally relied on to store video, such as NVRs and DVRs, cannot provide the performance or reliabil- ity needed for the large-scale IoT and se- curity deployments we’re seeing in today’s environment. Traditional enterprise stor- age appliances are often too expensive and complex for video-specific deployments be- cause they are not designed to manage the write-intensive nature of video data.
Storage and data management plat- forms that deliver robust enterprise-class IT capabilities through advanced levels of video and data protection, system per- formance and cost efficiencies are the fu- ture of smart city deployments. One such option is hyper converged infrastructure (HCI), which allows for the consolidation of video management, IoT data collec- tion, video and data analytics, storage, ac- cess control and other related applications onto a simple to deploy, easy to manage converged infrastructure.
HCI streamlines video management and storage capabilities by hosting soft- ware, servers and storage management on a single platform. This technology is ideal for security and IoT applications because it offers extreme resilience, which is important in mission-critical environ-
ments that have demanding data protec- tion and retention requirements in order to mitigate risk and ensure compliance. If multiple hardware failures occur, serv- ers remain online and previously recorded data is protected and available when need- ed. Furthermore, HCI can support mixed workloads and can host multiple applica- tions on a single infrastructure, delivering significant return on investment as a city’s security and IT needs evolve.
HCI also eliminates the complexity of managing separate physical servers and storage, and provides a more seamless way to scale the infrastructure as camera or sensor counts grow and analytics de- mands increase. This facilitates a smooth expansion as funding for smart city ini- tiatives expands or data retention re- quirements change. Furthermore, a single point of management provides operators and IT staff with a centralized view of the entire environment.
The Future is Today
The biggest challenge with today’s Safe City programs is how to effectively store and manage captured data. Often times, the volume of video information collected from modern systems can be overwhelm- ing. IoT devices and intelligent platforms will help cities identify what data is most valuable to their operations. But ensuring the protection of security data is critical to this endeavor.
HCI is just one of the new IT solutions that can have a positive impact on a city’s security efforts. There are many emerg- ing solutions to consider and evaluate as metropolitan environments seek to mod- ernize their operations. With innovations being introduced on a daily basis, the sky is the limit.
Brandon Reich is the vice president of security and IoT at Pivot3.
Collaboration: Working Together to Build Safer Cities
As a company, Pivot3 is committed to helping cities build safer, more intelligent communities. We recently announced a global initiative with Lenovo to develop, market and sell a new set of edge computing solutions optimized for essential smart city security.
A majority of smart city market growth is driven by mission-critical security initiatives that rely on information collated from sensors and databases, and then combined with video data and analytics including facial recognition, behavioral analysis, license plate recognition and other intelligence. According to IHS Markit, the global market for security equipment in the city surveil- lance sector surpassed $3 billion in 2017 and is expected to grow at an average rate of 14.6 percent through 2021. Effectively collecting, analyzing, storing and acting on all this information in real time depends on the latest advances in edge computing.
Together, Lenovo and Pivot3 are enabling the next generation of edge computing, where governments and organizations can leverage machine learning and analytics to better protect people, assets and infrastructure. Through this partnership, municipalities can centrally man- age their distributed edge devices with faster video ingest rates, higher resiliency and smaller, space conscious appliances. The integrated appliances feature Lenovo Data Center Group (DCG) ultra-reliable ThinkSystem servers powered by Pivot3 HCI software, which is optimized for the complex needs of security applications.
The partnership has resulted in a successful smart city deployment in the City of Bogotá, Colombia, which needed to refresh its complex monitoring system of more than 1,000 cameras from different vendors. To better manage disparate systems and streamline infrastructure, the city is deploying a highly efficient Lenovo/Pivot3 edge computing solution to achieve maximum efficiency and scale the entire security network into a central control center. With this new de- ployment in edge computing, the city of Bogotá is now able to seamlessly scale performance requirements as surveillance needs grow.
Following this initial deployment, the suburbs chose the technology to support another 2,000 cameras located along the city’s 18 boroughs. This new scalable edge computing solution allows the city’s security team to view any camera, regardless of brand, across the city from a single location, which will greatly simplify operations.
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