As demand for higher resolution camera is increasing thanks to the changing compliance mandated for surveillance data analytics, Video surveillance storage is well on the way to evolve to a scenario where sophisticated technology are being used to analyze and retrieve data on real-time. In this scenario, HDD vendor like Western Digital finds the places most suitable to be in and leading the technology changes needed for the market.
Today, IP based surveillance system has come to the forefront of conscious attention. It has the potential of providing real-time intelligence to the remote control rooms. As demand for higher resolution camera is increasing thanks to the changing compliance mandates for surveillance data, Video surveillance storage is well on the way to evolve to a scenario where sophisticated technologies are being used to analyze and retrieve data real-time.
The adoption of video surveillance systems is creating positive impact on the growth of the video surveillance storage market in India.
Last month Western Digital demonstrated what it called the world’s first MAMR, or microwave-assisted magnetic recording, hard drives. The technology will completely revolutionize the way hard drives function. The breakthrough technology, Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director, Middle East, Africa and India, Western Digital forecast, will take the hard drive spinning to 40 terabytes by 2020.
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“The biggest challenge which we see is the unorganized market. With the implementation of GST we were very optimistic, that at least now the unorganized segment will go out of the market and only the organised people will remain, which has not happened.”
Khwaja Saifuddin
Senior Sales Director
Middle East, Africa and India
Western Digital
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The MAMR technology will pave the way to higher recording densities and lower the cost per terabyte of hard disk drives for not just video surveillance systems and consumer NAS products but also for enterprise data centres.
The surveillance storage market in India
The surveillance storage market in India is growing between 13 to 15% CAGR. The biggest drivers are the migration of the existing customers to the IP bases surveillance.
Apart from that, the rising infrastructure, government regulations mandating all public places to have a 360-degree surveillance as increasing terrorism and criminal activities are the biggest factors that have spurred the market for video surveillance in India.
The affordability of IP-based camera solutions and the advent of mass connectivity have propelled the growth of video surveillance market.
The growth of mass surveillance however, throws up a number of challenges. “The biggest challenge which we see is the unorganized market. With the implementation of GST we were very optimistic, that at least now the unorganized segment will go out of the market and only the organised people will remain, which has not happened,” says Saifuddin.
Setting the standards in Place
Saifuddin underscores the importance of putting standards in place. There is an urgent need to set the video surveillance standards in place to ensure high quality and sustainability. “The biggest concern I want to raise is the lack of standards on the duration, coverage area and the quality of surveillance recording. When we have the global technologies and experiences available, the brands are ready to share their whitepapers that they have worked on globally then what is stopping the government to put standards when it comes to security and surveillance,” says Saifuddin.
According to Saifuddin, “Currently we are lacking standards on both the duration, coverage area and the quality of surveillance recording. CCTV surveillance is being implemented without keeping in mind any minimum standards. Globally, these are the basics of any investment in CCTV as this not only ensures the return on investment but it also the future scalability and stability of data.”
Data deluge
Data is the lifeblood of an organization. The growing adoption of IoT and digital transformation has resulted in the production of data on a huge scale. As the governments implement regulations that require minimum retention times, the data will only increase.
“Today of the total data which is being creating globally, we are using only half a percent, the other 99 and half percent of data yet to be used. As the exponential rise in data is a truism, faster and cost effective storage solutions are also in demand,” says Saifuddin.
Businesses can turn data into useful information to make better business decisions. The exponential rise of data has the potential to challenge the existing storage dynamic.
Since businesses and organizations will want to capitalise on the efficacy of surveillance to increase productivity and analyse data that is being created over longer periods of time, there is a need for drives that can withstand the 24×7 data writing involved with capturing multiple streams of high definition video. This will result in the growth of a company’s ROI. Today surveillance HDD line-up offers the reliability, capacity, robust, scalability and performance needed for today’s 24 x 7 surveillance environments.
Surveillance is a huge market for HDDs and India is going to be a key player due to Smart City initiative. With high-resolution video cameras being used for surveillance in the smart city projects, the storage systems will have to be upgraded in terms of storage capacity.
Channel Challenges
Western Digital has launched the My WD surveillance installer program that aims to offer training, sales support, value added benefits and incentives to the security and surveillance channel providers. “The main emphasis is on industry-relevant education, that they should know how many terabytes to get for that many days of recording, how to install the hard drive, how to configure a DVR, how to configure a mobile app, those things which we train and certify them. We also help them time to time about the changes which will happen in the technology,” said Khwaja Saifuddin, senior sales director, Middle East, Africa and India, Western Digital.
According to the vendor, the programme is designed to offer a comprehensive lineup of benefits for the security and surveillance channel providers.
Finally…
Infrastructural investment, government mandates, smart city initiatives, increasing risk of terror activities, etc. are driving the surveillance storage market in India. With the increasing adoption of Internet of Things, there would be more sophisticated storage solutions designed to reinvent the paradigms of video surveillance industry. Western Digital has certainly taken the lead in this direction.
