Selecting suitable components t o build are silient and dependable storage solution is based on various factors. “A customer's buying habit seems to be based on a triangle of budget, functionality and reliability,” said Mark Harraway, Country Manager of the U.K., Controlware. “If the buyer has the budget, it is possible to build a system with all the right features and no single point of failure. If budget is limited, functionality might be cut back.” To enjoy the features of a storage solution working to its fullest potential, a balance between the three factors is tricky and involves planning.
Primary and backup storage arrangements should be based on four points of consideration:
1. how critical the stored information is,
2. ease of access and management,
3. the amount of data transferred and
4. the purpose of storing data.
If budgets are limited, buyers must decide what functions to forego. “To simplify the design closer to the buyer's budget level, one should start with discussing the full disaster recovery plan,” Harraway suggested. “Imagine and discuss what the worst case scenario might be, and eliminate all other features and functions that are unnecessary. Verticals have different degrees of accepted risk — for instance the same level of threat posed for banking and the public sector would result in different countermeasures.”
The More Advanced, the Better?
Users should consider the environment and circumstance they are monitoring and decide whether advanced features such as high availability (HA) are needed. HA increases costs significantly, but is not always necessary. “For instance, major medical centers would require instant access to live video while recording from cameras in the emergency room on a 24/7/365 basis, from patients treated for auto accidents to heart attacks, in order to have a record of proceedings to protect the patients, staff and facility in terms of liability,” explained Jeff Whitney, VP of Marketing, Intransa. “In this environment, the medical center needs to install features with HA support.”
Modular Approach Some industtry specialists recommend affordable and modular storage. “The appliance model allows storage to be added as needed without halting recording,” Whitney said. “The larger the storage requirement, the more appropriate to use a modular, videooptimized appliance platform that can scale recording capacity.”
This approach might be more cost-saving initially, as well as more user-friendly for some users, Whitney said.