The proliferation of cameras in physical security has swelled storage requirements in the recent years, witnessing companies from the IT world leveraging their enterprise storage know-how within the security world.
Low awareness of benefits from advanced IT storage and higher prices are currently limiting widespread adoption of IT storage. However, growth in quality and quantity of video data is expected to push the adoption of networked storage and benefit from technologies such as virtualization and cloud storage.
The proliferation of cameras in physical security has swelled storage requirements in the recent years, witnessing companies from the IT world leveraging their enterprise storage know-how within the security world.
Low awareness of benefits from advanced IT storage and higher prices are currently limiting widespread adoption of IT storage. However, growth in quality and quantity of video data is expected to push the adoption of networked storage and benefit from technologies such as virtualization and cloud storage.
Industry challenges include high running costs, security concerns and technical complexity to limit growth in the market.
● High Complexity of Advanced IT Storage Systems: Advanced networked storage systems (NAS, SAN) integrating multiple security subsystems are complex, requiring expertise in terms of installation and maintenance.
● Complex Data Management Procedures: Effective management of storage through advanced RAID disks, automated backups to prevent accidental loss of data, constant upgrades makes it complex, time-consuming and requires high-level expertise.
● High End-User Expectations: Increasing performance and falling prices of hard disks forces stiff competition.
● Need to Limit Power and Cooling Costs: About 40 percent of the data center energy costs are towards maintaining storage systems, increasing operational costs.
● Exponential Growth in Video Data: Adoption of high-resolution video surveillance and integration of subsystems has resulted in huge amounts of video being generated.
● Need to Secure Security Data: With the advent of networking technologies, it has become more important to secure sensitive security related data from being compromised by incorporating advanced encryption and access control technologies.
Technology trends include cloud storage, solid-state storage, storage virtualization and green storage.
A handful of IT companies such as EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Hitachi Data Systems are clear leaders in the storage market. Key competitive factors that influence purchasing decisions are scalability, availability of resources, flexibility, ROI, cost per unit storage, price of the entire solution, brand reputation and ease of installation/maintenance.