Jan 28
2021
For Effective Campus Security, Education IT Can’t Overlook File Data Management
By Ben Gitenstein, vice president of product, Qumulo.
Schools are managing major digital transformations to better support student education, including campus safety. Security is even more top-of-mind during the holiday season — crimes like theft and burglary tend to spike when the campus empties out for holiday breaks. It’s a good time for schools to think about a security upgrade.
As schools enhance their security systems, they are adding an increasing number of high-resolution IP surveillance cameras and smart devices to improve safety for students and staff on campus. This creates an IT challenge: Security footage generates a massive amount of file data. Depending on the size of the campus, there might be hundreds or thousands of cameras, each producing enormous volumes of content, all day long, that needs to be managed and securely retained for increasingly long retention periods. Gone are the days that video surveillance data is deleted at the end of the day, now it is kept for future investigations and for analytics of foot and vehicle traffic patterns and anomalies on days of interest.
Forward-thinking campus security officers are partnering with their IT leaders to rethink the way they manage file data, in order to keep up with the fast pace of modern security systems. Below are five considerations for education when evaluating a file data platform to support today’s video surveillance and security system demands.
- Without high availability and reliable access to file data, schools risk losing important video frames.
Video surveillance footage can be one of the most critical pieces of evidence used to solve crimes. It’s imperative that there are no interruptions in data flow, which can result in the loss of video frames. If the storage system is ever down, it means the district loses video recording — which could have big consequences if a security incident isn’t recorded.
The right file data platform should ensure that city and state agencies and public sector organizations never lose access, or a frame. And, built-in data protection to automatically create duplicate copies of data in a secondary location ensures this footage is protected from a system or datacenter disaster. Data availability and performance should be high on the priority list when a school plans out its file data system for video surveillance.