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Why Gaming Casinos Need High-Performance Video Surveillance Storage

Casinos make a lot of money. Despite $21.3 billion in economic losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, future projections still look good. In 2019, the industry hit an all-time single-year high of $43.6 billion in the United States. People like AGA CEO, Bill Miller, believes the gaming community will return stronger than ever. In the meantime, Casinos are beginning to invest in things like security. Of course, the biggest weapon in a casino’s arsenal is its video surveillance system. But a digital video surveillance system is only as good as the storage solution that backs it up.

The average casino has approximately 2,000 analog cameras connected to various technologies. Many casinos operating in the United States are awkwardly transitioning from analog to digital cameras and recording devices. Usually, state regulations dictate how far along casinos have gotten in their transition. Other significant factors include the size and age of the existing surveillance system and the casino’s budget. Nevertheless, most experts agree that digital surveillance will dominate casinos within five years. This includes resorts and hospitality organizations as well.

How Storage Upgrades Play Into This Transition

With so many cameras capturing data and recording video, a casino could easily produce 1.2 petabytes worth of data. There is no way traditional Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) or Network Video Recorders (NVRs) can handle that much data. And while unlimited storage subscriptions offered by cloud services seem tempting, the storage capacity one requires will be notably less.

If we compiled a list of workflows with the most exacting storage demands, video surveillance is among the top three. And depending on who is leading the discussion, it might be said it’s number one. So it’s not surprising that organizations relying heavily on video data remain at the tail end of the data storage movement. Taking into account all the possible variables involved, the amount of data needing to be processed, analyzed, and stored is monstrous. Some quick examples of possible variables include:

  • Number of cameras
  • Type of technology
  • Type of software
  • Video lengths
  • Video format
  • Types of compression
  • Data retention policies

Intelligent Surveillance Systems, Big Data, and Advanced Analytics

Advanced Intelligence Video Surveillance Systems (AIVSS) are another up and coming technology poised to become a part of casino video surveillance. In other words, there is a growing push towards incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into casino video surveillance. Such high technology would open wondrous possibilities beyond the eye in the sky.

It would make available completely new and rewarding kinds of business intelligence (BI). But statistically, many organizations never realize its full potential due to inadequate storage, incorrect storage, or shoddy storage practices.

 To make Big Data environments viable, scale-out storage designed for high volume, rich media workflows is essential. As it stands presently, a vast majority of surveillance storage systems are operating as silos. To prevent that from happening, video surveillance needs proven data management—lightning-fast capture, manageable access, scale, policy-driven tiering, and dependable protection.

Partial or Jury-Rigged Solutions Make Things Worse

Existing approaches to close the gap have thus far shown to be ineffective at best. Thanks to advances in computing and storage, depending on obsolescent technology and human assistance no longer makes sense. Yet many organizations continue to hinge their futures on manual data collection and analysis. Being that it’s time-consuming isn’t the worse part; it’s inefficient, prone to human error, vulnerable to ill intent, and unsustainable.

Organizations have learned this the hard way by allowing their IT to build out storage using existing, often outdated storage devices. Others were convinced by enthusiastic salespeople that cloud storage was their savior. Merely months after signing an expensive and inflexible cloud contract did they realize there was a lot in the fine print after all.

Casinos require an exceptional solution; one that blends Herculean storage capabilities with cutting-edge AI techniques in a single turnkey platform.

Raid Inc. X-AI Series: Robust Data Integrity and Reliability

RAID Incorporated has been operating heavily in the data storage industry for nearly 30 years. During that time, we’ve matured into an organization that values teamwork; not just among ourselves but with each one of our clients. With this philosophy, we’ve teamed up with the U.S. Army, NASA, the Department of Defense, the FBI, among many others.

What do those institutions have in common with casinos?

They have long since recognized how critical adequate data storage is to not only video surveillance but lightning-fast capture, manageable access, scale, policy-driven tiering, and dependable protection. Not many other private organizations require similar technology. But we completely understand how much is at stake for casino operators, and not just losing money to cheaters.

RAID Inc.’s X-AI Accelerated, Any–Scale (AI) solutions break new ground for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL), providing unmatched flexibility for your organization’s AI needs. Engineered from the ground-up for the AI-enabled data center, X-AI solutions are optimized for ingest, training, data transformations, replication, metadata and small data transfers. RAID Inc. offers flexibility in platform choice with the all-flash NVMe X2-AI/X4-AI or the X5-AI, a hybrid flash and hard drive storage platform which leverages parallel access to flash and deeply expandable HDD storage.

RAID Incorporated lives up to its very name by being a recognized leader when it comes to scale-out storage for high volume, rich media workflows. Clients both governmental and private; institutional and corporate benefit from RAID Inc. X-AI Series. Interested in learning more about how X-AI Series is perfectly designed for the data storage needs of casinos? Talk to one of our professional and friendly experts today!