#cloud video surveillance
Video surveillance in the «clouds».
In order to understand what «clouds» are, let's look at the history of the issue.
The idea, now called «cloud computing», was first voiced in 1970, at the dawn of the creation of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).
The idea was that every person on earth would be able to connect to a network from which he would receive not only data, but also programs.
A little later, the idea appeared that computing power would be be provided to users as a service.
At this point, the development of cloud technologies was suspended until the end of the 90s.
In the mid-to-late 90s, the increase in Internet bandwidth and its widespread use gave a new impetus to the development of «clouds».
One of the most significant events in this area was the emergence of Salesforce in 1999.
This company was the first to provide access to its application through a website.
In fact, Salesforce was the first to provide software as a service (SaaS).
The next step was the creation of a web service by Amazon in 2002 that allowed data storage and calculations.
In 2006, Amazon launched a web service that allowed its users to launch their own applications.
Another important step was the creation of the Google Apps platform by Google for web applications in the business sector.
Nowadays, «clouds» are no longer exotic, and almost everyone has encountered them in one way or another (mail on servers like gmail, mail.ru, yandex.ru, etc.).
Why «cloud»?
The name «cloud» appeared because in IT it is customary to designate a part of the network, and also because the real infrastructure is hidden from the user.
That is, the «cloud» user does not know where the servers are physically located, what equipment is used, what OS they are running, etc.
To work with the «cloud», as a rule, it is enough to launch an Internet browser and go to a certain page, where in accordance with your rights you can access your data.
The main advantage of working with the «cloud» is easy and quick access to the information stored in it at any time convenient for you.
This can be either regular mail, an array of data or documents, or highly specialized applications and software.
Steps in the «clouds»
As the speed of communication channels increased and computing power became cheaper, it became possible to provide customers not only with simple services such as mail, but also to create their own infrastructure, platform or obtain the necessary hardware power in the cloud.
It became possible to provide some part of the cloud for temporary use on a commercial basis.
It was at this point that the concept of SaaS appeared. Instead of purchasing any software, the user can rent it, saving on purchasing an expensive license.
The user does not have to worry about software updates and functionality. All these responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the service provider.
The next logical step is hardware as a service (HaaS), i.e. providing hardware capacity of the «cloud».
For example, a company needs large computing capacities, but instead of building its own data center (data processing center), the necessary hardware capacities can be rented for the duration of data processing.
In this case, it is possible to launch your own processes or your own specialized software. Conventionally, «clouds» can be divided into three classes.
Public «clouds» — those that are owned by a company that rents out the resources of its «clouds» to third parties or organizations.
At the same time, tenants, as a rule, cannot control physical access to the «cloud» and cannot fully control logical access.
Private «clouds» are «clouds» deployed on the basis of their own data centers and intended for internal use only.
In this case, the owner company fully controls the «cloud» (both physical and logical access) and launches the services it needs in it. However, only its employees can use such a «cloud».
Mixed (hybrid) «clouds» — an option when a company has its own data center, but its capabilities are excessive for the company or have some seasonality, which allows part of the resources to be leased.
Each of these options has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Using a public «cloud» by a company does not imply purchasing equipment and hiring IT specialists.
If necessary, the company can easily obtain additional capacity for new tasks.
All this allows for significant savings.
The main disadvantage of public clouds is the lack of guarantees that data from the cloud will not leak anywhere and will not be irretrievably lost.
In most cases, it is impossible to recover data lost in such a cloud.
A company can only minimize the risk of data leakage and loss by deploying a cloud based on its own data center.
In this case, the company fully controls both physical and logical access to the cloud.
However, this inevitably entails additional costs for expensive IT specialists, the corresponding equipment, and the maintenance of this “cloud.”
And these are serious costs.
A great many good and productive data centers have been created in Russia, where anyone can rent a “cloud.”
It is very profitable to move non-critical business processes that may be needed at any time to the «cloud»: e-mail, storing some documents, working together on some projects, etc. These processes, placed in the «cloud», will always be available and from almost any device with an Internet browser.
It is no coincidence that the main consumers of public «clouds» are small and medium-sized companies. Large companies prefer to deploy their «clouds» based on their own data centers.
Now about security systems
At first glance, it would seem that using the «cloud» to build, say, video surveillance systems is very convenient and practical.
It is very tempting to use a virtually unlimited amount of space for storing video archives and power for processing video streams.
But let's remember that almost all information received from video surveillance systems is confidential. Moreover, the larger the company, the more serious this information is. When trying to use a public «cloud», there is a high probability that the data can be stolen or, even worse, replaced.
Another problem: a large number of cameras requires a very serious bandwidth of the information channel. After all, as a rule, it is necessary not only to transmit the image from the cameras to the «cloud» servers, but also to return them back to the security posts. One of the features of using «cloud» resources is that the tenant uses it only when there is a need for it. And video surveillance is always work in 24 x 7 mode.
Another problem is the reliability of the Internet channel. Unfortunately, very few Russian Internet providers are, in principle, ready to sign an SLA (service level agreement) with their clients.
Even fewer companies are ready to sign an SLA of the level necessary to transfer video surveillance to the «cloud».
For example, some Internet providers are ready to sign an SLA at the level of 99.5%.
In absolute numbers, this means that a company can be left without video surveillance for 44 hours a year.
Are you ready to leave your company without video surveillance for two days?
And finally, such an important point as profitability.
Experts have calculated that operating a video surveillance system in the cloud, even for a small facility, such as a store, is almost always economically unprofitable today.
The monthly cost of a bandwidth channel from all cameras to the cloud, plus rent for the necessary space, etc. will be significantly higher than the cost of a single video recorder.
That is, in the classical sense, using the «cloud» to build video surveillance systems is of little use today — there are too many obvious and practically unsolvable problems.
Especially given Russian realities.
An upward trend?
So what happens?
Is it really impossible to use such an undoubtedly promising technology as «clouds» to build security systems?
I think it is impossible.
No, if you really want to, then of course you can, but such systems will by definition be inferior to classic ones in terms of reliability, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
And yet, “clouds” have every chance of becoming an upward trend in our industry.
This, in my opinion, will happen if conditions are created for using the “cloud” as an integration platform.
Let me explain my idea.
For example, a facility has video surveillance systems, access control systems, perimeter security systems, and fire alarm systems installed. Existing software packages, both foreign and domestic, have a limited number of integrated equipment.
As a rule, this is their own access and some limited set of video surveillance and fire alarm equipment integrated with it.
But it can be so (in practice, this is often the case), when the customer does not have the opportunity, or it is not profitable for him to build a security system for all his facilities based on one access control system.
For example, a company has acquired a new business and wants to create a security system that is uniform for all its facilities. A normal and very correct desire.
And at different times, different systems based on different software packages were installed at the facilities. Agree, this is a very real-life example.
And all these disparate systems need to be combined into a single whole.
This is where some kind of integration platform can come in handy.
This is, if you like, a conceptual idea. For example, there is a central building and several small branches in different cities.
It is logical to install a serious multifunctional security system in the central office.
In the branches, you will really want to save money and equip them with budget systems.
Right now, this is almost impossible — there is simply no such software.
Here is where the opportunity arises to use the «cloud» as an integration platform, in which you can concentrate software packages for a large number of different ACS, video surveillance systems, fire alarm systems, etc.
The practical implementation of such a platform is a topic for a separate discussion.
How can such an integration platform be used?
The first option: the company stores all data from all systems locally.
In the event that it becomes necessary to analyze some abnormal situation, the security service can upload the data to the «cloud» and get a single picture of the operation of all systems, synchronized, say, by time: such and such an event occurred in the ACS, the cameras showed such and such at that time, such and such security alarm sensors were triggered, etc.
The second option: store the data again locally, and keep all the drivers and services that allow integrating various equipment in the «cloud».
Even if the connection with the «cloud» is lost for some reason, all systems will switch to autonomous operation, as in the case of using a regular server.
In addition to the ability to integrate a wide range of equipment, another advantage of using the «cloud» is the availability of serious capacities for processing a wide variety of data from various systems in real time.
Of course, other options are possible.
In particular, you can use the «cloud» to implement small systems, say, for 2-3 cameras.
But as the system grows, it will certainly become obvious that it is cheaper to buy a recorder.
Not to mention the fact that information from 2 cameras can be written to the hard drive of a regular computer.
A separate trend can be considered the construction of «cloud» security systems based on specialized controllers, rather than classic servers.
That is, the «cloud» is formed by controllers that are essentially industrial computers, but «sharpened» for work specifically in security systems.
The main task of such controllers is to control the ACS, but the video surveillance system and the fire alarm system are also launched and controlled on their basis.
Such controllers are usually freely programmable, are highly intelligent devices, can form a distributed network and directly exchange all necessary information with each other.
This principle can be applied to network surveillance.
Cameras and other third-party devices access the «cloud», and specialized controllers inside figure out how they will work, information from which cameras and where to record.
Even if one of the controllers fails, the system itself will redistribute the load between the remaining devices and continue to work.
This «cloud» is completely closed, the controllers are physically located inside the company, the network is closed to outsiders and is intended exclusively for security systems.
Such systems already exist.
But this is a separate trend that can perfectly complement the «cloud» integration platform for security systems.
Creating such a platform is difficult, expensive, but very promising and fast will cover all costs. Especially since the basis for creating such a platform is available in Russia.