Video surveillance drags massive storage wherever it goes
Dot Hill’s US Army contract reported by Byte and Switch points to a big increase in data collected and exploited by the military over the next few years. A key driver will be integration of surveillance data into battlefield and strategic decision making.
Sound familiar? The video surveillance data tsunami that has already washed over the Gaming industry has reached the military’s shore.
Look at video’s effect on casino storage:
Sixteen surveillance cameras can churn out 11 terabytes of data in 90 days - all of which must be kept on hand.
Higher resolution video analytics can up that to 44 terabytes.
Building out the digital infrastructure, Japan-style
I’m back in Japan meeting with system builders and resellers. It’s always inspiring to visit the spiritual center of consumer electronics, the birthplace of legendary consumer brands like Sony, Panasonic, and Nikon.
What has struck me this visit is what’s going on “behind” the consumer. Like everywhere else, the storage and solutions business here is expanding beyond the devices used to consume digital content to the infrastrucure that creates, delivers, archives and protects it.
Video surveillance will be big even in safe Japan
The details vary by country of course. Japan is a world leader in smartphone adoption, for example, but is lagging in video surveillance adoption. There are few if any casinos (a classic early adopter of this technology) and the country is legendarily safe. But as the benefits of digitized surveillance move beyond the obvious with video analytics and other tools that make it a business tool, Japan will catch up, creating a mini-boom for storage solution providers here.
In the end, digital content and enabling technologies are a universal trend - and will come to roost in time most everywhere.
Bring digital solutions home to your customers
Looking for opportunity? Cast a wide net. Figure out where your customers can leverage an existing solution from someone like them around the corner or around the world.
Storage demand is bucking negative trends, thanks in large part to video
Byte and Switch’s list of the hottest storage networking market segments shows a powerful trend at work. Four out of their six hottest markets are video-intensive, demonstrating that moving pictures are the byte-hogs pushing content volume.
Video surveillance is number one on their list, forecast to be a $46 billion market in 2013. These dollars are not all storage, but storage devices play a key enabling role in these solutions.
Entertainment (video production and distribution) is at #2, followed by Web 2.0 (including YouTube) at #3. Sixth on the list is medical archiving, spurred by medical records heavy with hi-res patient images.
Conspicuously absent from Byte and Switch’s list is the home market. Granted, much of this is not networked, but for the first time, consumer data has surpassed business data in volume. Not as sexy as some of the above categories, but definitely worth considering if you’re a local provider looking to satisfy a growing need.
Removable disk drives create unique value and profitable business
Jon Johnson of CRU-Dataport described some of the new, high-growth applications for removable storage. We’re not talking about thumb drives. He sees removable storage re-inventing surveillance, education, and professional services applications in less-than-obvious ways.
Sound familiar? Nortech and Cor Digital both called out these markets as fertile ground for their businesses.
Consider enhancing your solution with technology that makes things easier and more productive for your customer - and sets you apart from your competitors.
There’s more to delivering surveillance solutions than picking a hard drive, but storage plays a pivotal role in deploying rock-solid solutions that fit within your customers’ budget. Seagate has published some guidance on surveillance storage requirements:
Businesses are keeping their surveillance data for up to a year
Jack Hatfield filled me in on Cor Digital Technology, Inc.’s surveillance business. They’ve been focused on this market for a while now and are seeing lots of growth. He also talks about his growing mobile surveillance business and what’s driving it.
Gotta love those terabytes!
By the way, Seagate has a three-product solution set for surveillance: SV35 drives for surveillance DVRs, Barracuda ES drives for enterprise surveillance and EE25 for mobile/rugged surveillance.
