Betting on Video
What you should know about video surveillance storage in Casinos
- By Brandon Reich
- Apr 01, 2017
It can’t be argued: Video surveillance is a mission-critical system
in the gaming sector. Casinos leverage video technology to stay
vigilant against a wide variety of risks, such as fraud, crowding,
loss and other issues that impact the safety of employees and
customers. Surveillance solutions not only help ensure security
and fraud reduction but can be useful in other uses, such as tracking
advantage players, identifying lost items and reducing employee
theft. But system uptime is critical as downtime can lead to operational
interruptions that require costly guard oversight or even, shutting
down revenue-generating tables and games.
Today’s modern gaming facilities are blanketed with video surveillance,
and many casinos have bought into the benefits provided
by network-based surveillance solutions. Digital technologies deliver
significantly enhanced capabilities, which is a virtual boon for
the gaming market. One high-definition or 360-degree camera can
replace two to three analog models, reducing costs, while providing
higher image quality.
Industry regulations, passed down by various gaming boards, often
drive the adoption of technology. Although these standards may
vary from region to region, nearly every casino must adhere to some
type of minimum standard as it relates to the operation of its surveillance
system. (Whether it is in regards to minimum resolution/frame
rate requirements, the number of cameras watching a gaming table or
video retention times.)
Building Intelligence
The simple truth is that today’s gaming leaders seek more advanced
levels of business and security intelligence than ever before. Casinos
of all sizes and types want to gain increased situational awareness
and targeted intelligence from their technology investments. Connected
devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) further drive the capability
to collect actionable information.
As noted previously, the value of video reaches far beyond investigative
and security purposes. Casino marketing teams use video
to determine the success of promotional and marketing campaigns,
while front-desk staff leverage video to identify top-tier guests. These
new use cases are only the tip of the iceberg, but demonstrate the
growing benefit of video surveillance as a security and business optimization
tool. Capturing, protecting and mobilizing this data is
paramount, and a very challenging task for traditional surveillance
storage methods.
As the value of video increases, ensuring the investment is secured
becomes of even greater importance. System failures are not tolerable
because it opens the door to increased risks, new vulnerabilities
and potential operational interruptions. None of these are viable options
for any casino, regardless of what sector it operates in. Video
needs to be protected just as an enterprise would protect corporate
and IT data. Therefore, gaming environments require enterprise-class
storage and data management platforms that are proven to secure
data and the solutions most well-suited for this task are those proven
within the rigorous walls of the IT world.
Evaluating Storage Options
Performance is the single most important aspect of delivering highquality
video. The ability to store large amounts of video without
dropping frames (which leads to image quality degradation) is of
utmost importance — especially when having to meet regulations
passed down by gaming boards. Resiliency is also critical as it eliminates
system downtime and data loss. Live and recorded video must
be available and accessible even when hardware fails. Scalability is
also a big requirement for casinos because it allows facilities to start
small and grow as needs, technologies and budgets change over time.
To address the needs of the gaming market, new technologies and
infrastructure platforms are being introduced. Flash technology —
while still cost prohibitive for primary video storage methods — can
be used strategically to improve video capture performance and prevent
image quality degradation.
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is another solid option because
it eliminates complexity and cost, and brings enterprise-class
technology to gaming environments. At a very basic level, HCI combines
highly sophisticated data storage and server hardware together
through software into a simple appliance-based solution. HCI leverages
software-defined storage and server virtualization, deployed on
industry standard, off-the-shelf server hardware.
HCI is gaining traction in security and surveillance environments
because of the significant limitations of other systems. NVRs and
DVRs (DAS) are no longer solid choices for storing critical surveillance
data because they are very difficult to manage when used in
larger video deployments. Traditional IT systems either don’t work
well with intensive surveillance workloads or they can be prohibitively
expensive.
As more gaming entities look to adopt IP technology and new
innovations, such as high-resolution panoramic cameras and video
analytics, more traditional IT storage solutions will be challenged by
the write-intensive nature of surveillance. Storage and data management
platforms that deliver robust enterprise-class IT capabilities, advanced
levels of video and data protection, and higher system performance
are the future of video storage. Only then can casinos realize
the benefits of highly efficient storage and built-in failover without
the complexity or cost typically associated with infrastructure based
on separate servers and SAN storage.
Casinos need to closely evaluate how they can
incorporate more advanced IT platforms into
their video storage infrastructure to be able to address
the needs of today as well as the dreams of
tomorrow.
This article originally appeared in the April 2017 issue of Security Today.