Building Better Storage Solutions
- By Steven Titch
- Apr 01, 2009
Storage is intimidating.
Products and solutions are sprinkled with acronyms and terms even seasoned network professionals find confusing and often can’t accurately define. Architectures vary enough from vendor to vendor that comparisons are difficult.
Filter out storage’s alphabet soup of SANs, NAS, SATA and RAID, though, and you’ll find vendors are competing on three basic points: scalability, performance and cost. When CSOs focus on these three parameters and striking the right the balance among them, they’re well on their way to finding the storage solution right for their organization.
The basic component of storage hardware is simply a drivea magnetic disk and spindle. Very much like an old phonograph, the spindle moves over the surface of the disk to read and write data.
Differentiation lies in how fast the spindle can read and write, the overall capacity of the disk and how many disks there are. Software components determine how the data is organized as it is stored on the disk and how users can view, manipulate and manage stored files.
Network components, if they come into play, involve the way the data, along with storage commands and protocols, work across an enterprise-wide area or local area network.
Finally, the applications the storage systems support, whether standard enterprise functions, such as payroll, personnel or accounting, or for video surveillance, have an impact on the choice of hardware, software and networking components and how they are assembled.
With the increase in video surveillance in both large and small-scale applications, a number of vendors are offering specific solutions to address the unique demands that video places on storage systems.
Growing Demand
Moreover, the demand for storage in the surveillance sector is contributing to significant overall market growth. The total storage market hit $10.6 billion in 2007, a 12.2 percent increase from 2006, and was expected to surpass $11 billion in 2008, according to a Gartner report released last June. Despite the looming recession, revenues grew 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2008 from the same quarter a year before, according to an IDC report released about the same time.
Mindful of the surveillance market’s potential as a growth driver, most of the leading storage systems vendors, including EMC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Network Appliance Corp., have begun to offer packages targeting surveillance applications.
These efforts are attempts to invade territory staked out by Intransa and Pivot3, two companies with mid- to high-end storage solutions specifically geared for surveillance equipment and platforms, including cameras, video management software and analytics.
A third group, which includes Advanced Computer & Network Corp., Dynamic Network Factory, Hie Electronics and Overland Storage, are positioning themselves against Intransa and Pivot3 as more economical and less complex storage alternatives that also provide the capacity and robustness to meet video storage requirements.
Video Storage Anomalies
Although each group of vendors has a different solutions approach, they all address the anomalous performance characteristics that video storage has compared to other enterprise applications. The large volume of data video storage involves is just one.
In addition, while in most enterprise applications, the ratio of database writes to reads is about 50-50, in video surveillance, database writes far outweigh the number of reads. Lee Caswell, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Pivot3 in Spring, Texas, estimates a write/read, or input/output, ratio of 98 to 2. Another anomaly of video storage relative to conventional IT, Caswell said, is that the percentage of storage devices to application servers is reversed. In a typical IT environment, a small number of storage units are able to support 20 or more applications that range from enterprise resource planning, customer service, accounting, payroll and e-mail to documents and spreadsheets. In video, it’s the opposite.
There are a small number of applications -- surveillance, analytics and sometimes, integrated access control -- but they require a large amount of storage. Plus, in video, Caswell said, each time storage capacity increases, there needs to be a commensurate increase in bandwidth. “That breaks the mold,” he said.
The consequence is that video requirements can put a speed bump in IT plans to reduce costs through consolidating storage and virtualization -- where application data is stored across any number of devices on the network, yet those devices appear to the network as a single storage point.
The challenge for CSOs at the high end, then, is to present a scalable, reliable storage solution that doesn’t run counter to IT executives’ budget goals. Even at the market’s middle to low end, where there might be no IT operation, the same rules apply. The increasing reliance on cameras for security presents storage costs that can easily spiral out of control.
Geared For Video
By targeting physical security, Pivot3 and Intransa of San Jose, Calif., have made inroads against the established storage players, which tend to dominate IT mindshare.
Their message is threefold: they understand and address the storage anomalies of video; they are better connected to other vendors in the surveillance equipment supply chain; and their storage architectures, while robust, are simpler to implement and manage.
Intransa’s solution probably would not be ideal for an Oracle-type database application, said Jeff Whitney, vice president of marketing for Intransa. He said the company’s low- to high-end line of storage solutions, which focuses on management and retention, is better suited for security environments. “The underlying technology layer is built around video workloads, which are non-stop writes,” he said.
The management aspects of the system, Whitney said, derive from several Intransa patents. Essentially, users can attach cameras and video management systems and use the Intransa management software to configure the storage architecture.
Unlike the IT storage companies, Whitney said Intransa’s equipment is designed specifically to accommodate physical security interfaces. More than 125 products are certified to work with the Intransa gear, including cameras, DVRs, NVRs and management software from American Dynamics, Bosch, Honeywell, Genetec, IndigoVision, Milestone and OnSSI.
“Even if IT is involved, they feel quite comfortable,” Whitney said. “An IT guy can set it up, but so can a security guy without any training.”
Intransa customers include Wynn Resorts, which installed some 500 Intransa BuildingBlock storage units for archiving under a contract with Honeywell.
Traditional IT storage vendors are not backing down. Take EMC, which by most measures leads the network storage market with between 25 and 30 percent of the revenue share. Dick O'Leary, senior director of the Global Strategies Group, said EMC is no newcomer to surveillance applications and has been delivering video storage solutions since 2002.
EMC’s value proposition is built around IT best practices: open standards and constant availability, O’Leary said.
He pointed to the company’s $2 billion interoperability lab in Hopkinton, Mass. The size and scale of EMC solutions also is a selling point. Deployments of 5,000 to 10,000 cameras that might require highend Intransa and Pivot3 systems can be met by low- and medium-end solutions from EMC, he said.
Questions Of Cost
Still, the rap against EMC, as well as IBM, HP and NetApp, is their relatively high price. As a baseline, customers of EMC, IBM and the other IT-rooted companies can expect to pay between $2,500 and $3,000 per terabyte, with resalechannels accounting for much of the markup. Both Intransa and Pivot3, which tend to use security industry channels, can cut that cost by as much as half. A second tier of vendors, primarily targeting smaller installations, is pressing the economy story further, claiming delivery of workable but less sophisticated systems for as low as $500 per terabyte.
Gene Leyzarovich, president of Advanced Computer & Network Corp. in Pittsburgh, which markets the JetStor line of storage systems, calls it “simple reliable storage with no bells and whistles.”
“EMC and Dell are on one side; they have to support every application that needs storage,” Leyzarovich said. “Pivot 3 and Intransa are trying to claim industry leadership in video surveillance storage.
They say they optimize video.” Both the IT-centric and video-optimized sets of high-end vendors tend to rely on redundant arrays of independent disks for back-up, particularly RAID 5 and 6, newer standards applying to the redundant architecture. Still, RAID adds cost. RAID 5 requires three enclosures -- one for primary storage and two for backup.
All three drives are running simultaneously, and, given the 24/7 nature of streaming video surveillance, they don’t turn off.
While AC&NC employs RAID, the company combines it with a concept that may yet circle back to the larger vendors: moving recorded surveillance video off live storage and into archives as soon as possible. AC&NC’s JetStor devices capture video, usually in a network-attached storage architecture, but then, after a specified length of time the user determines, move files via a gigabit Ethernet connection to a back-up server. From there, video can be moved to tape or other backup disks, a set-up Leyzarovich refers to as
“MAID,” for “massive array of idle disks.” The result, he said, can be a 20 to 30 percent savings in energy costs alone. That comes on top of the systems savings, he added. JetStor-based open network solutions can deliver 12 TB storage for $8,000, he said. In proprietary configurations, the same capacity can cost up to $30,000 from other vendors.
Tapping Blu-Ray
Hie Electronics of McKinney, Texas, has its own spin on rapid archiving, which Patrick Humm, chairman and CEO, called “near-line” storage. Hie’s TeraStack solution offloads live recorded data ontohigh-definition Blu-ray DVDs. The tradeoff is in latency. While the video on Blu-ray is accessible with an NVR or video management system, it will take 40 to 60 seconds to recall, hence the term near-line.
“We’re targeting high-growth areas in the data market,” he said. Some 1,500 cameras, each generating an average of 5 TB a week, would generate a total of 8 petabytes of data. “[Storage] is impossible to implement using any other technology.”
As with AC&NC, Humm said Hie’s TeraStack reduces the number of disk drives. A cabinet one-third the rack size providing 10 TB of online storage and 50 TB of near-line storage can integrate with 128 cameras with 4 CIF resolution at 30 frames per second, he said.
Rapid archiving also alleviates the problems associated with disk failure. Because they contain so many moving parts, disk drives tend to be the most likely to fail of all the components in an electronic system. In 2007, a Carnegie-Mellon study with Google found that of 10,000 hard drives, 2 percent failed in the first year of operations and 8 to 9 percent failed in the second. “A large storage requirement is a massive maintenance headache,” Humm said. “Of 10,000 hard drives, 700 to 1,000 will die in two years.”
Maintenance issues with mechanical drives are leading to more work with solid state flash drives. Already common with PCs and digital cameras, larger solid state memory devices, such as Intel’s X-25E 32 GB SATA chip, offer greater reliability potential.
Right-Sizing Storage
The simplicity message adopted by the economy-minded vendors extends to aiding users in determining what they need. Steve Rogers, director of product and solutions marketing at Overland Storage in San Diego, said his company seeks to help users, especially those with small installations, “right-size” their requirements and “buy economically for the storage they need.” Both he and Mo Tahmasebi, president and CEO of Dynamic Network Factory in Hayward, Calif., tout their cost at $500 to $1,500 per terabyte, making them competitive with the likes of AC&NC. DNF provides an online calculator that allows users to input their requirements and then view a selection of storage products that will meet them.
DNF calculates storage needs from a proprietary index of 10 to 20 different system parameters, which it uses to measure performance and optimize the system. The index can be used to establish the price points of the components, Tahmasebi said. Its equipment integrates with 15 video management system manufacturers.
Rogers estimated that 70 percent of the market is made up of users with less than 50 cameras. While Intransa and Pivot3 target the higher-end, he said, Overland Storage is going after strip malls, parking lots, gas stations and other smaller-scale, yet storage-intensive security environments.
The company has a partnership with Mobotix, which markets an IP-based megapixel camera with a file system on board. This unique feature means Mobotix cameras do not require server hardware and software to sit between them and the storage media.
Among the Overland-Mobotix customers is a U.K. hospital using 150 cameras that all buffer data in onboard flash drives, Rogers said, which preserve video if a connection or portion of storage media is lost. Event-triggered recording increases savings.
Like Pivot3 and Intransa, both Rogers and Tahmasebi also emphasized the way their respective solutions are optimized for video. “When video is coming in, you can’t stop for dropped frames, deal with latency or replace a disk,” Tahmasebi said. “With general information, it’s okay to stop to rebuild a disk. That’s not acceptable to security people.”
Latency and disk failure will become more of an issue as megapixel cameras become more common. EMC, IBM and HP solutions are optimized for big writes and small reads, he claimed. “There’s a traffic model, a traffic load,” Tahmasebi said. “You have to perform. If you don’t, it’s not forgiving.”
This article originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Network-Centric Security.