Storage Correctional Facility Uses JetStor to Archive +100TB of Video Data

‍Inyo County Jail Enhance Security with Video Surveillance Supported by JetStor® RAID Solutions

At 10,412 square miles, California’s Inyo County is the third largest county in the nation and, considering its natural resources, one of the most remarkable. It is home to Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states, Death Valley, the lowest point in the U.S., and the Great Basin bristlecone pines, the oldest life forms in the world.

It is also home to Inyo County Jail, the county’s only correctional facility, located in the county seat of Independence, CA. The facility houses 96 inmates, who are supervised by a staff of nearly 50 correctional officers and administrators.

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The American Security Group installed a comprehensive IP video surveillance system anchored by JetStor RAID Arrays that meets Inyo County Jail’s security and storage needs. Correctional officers view live color feeds from cameras within and outside the facility on monitors at their stations or from remote locations. They even can rewind and fast-forward the video to review inmate behavior. Hourly, the video is sent to the JetStor solutions, resulting in 4.4 to 12 gigabytes of surveillance video stored daily.

The JetStor systems ensure that the jail’s video is secure thanks to their RAID 6 configuration. This dual parity setting means that no data is lost even if two disks fail. “We knew that JetStor can meet the critical demands of law enforcement, having successfully installed them for police departments and military bases,” said Anthony. “They’re easy to deploy and ideal for 100-200 terabyte storage needs. Plus, they cost a fraction of competing solutions with similar capacities.”

American Security Group manages the JetStor arrays using the web-based JetStor GUI Raid Manager application. The application will automatically email the security provider’s staff should any problems arise with the devices. “We’ve never received an email from the JetStors,” noted Anthony. “Their unwavering reliability makes them the solution of choice for mission-critical surveillance storage, especially wherever IT resources are limited.”

Key to Inyo County Jail’s long-term video storage is the system stores on the JetStors only digital “footage” in which there is motion. This prevents saving hours of empty hallways. With 96 cameras continually feeding video streams, this strategy slashes by 60 percent the amount of data that is archived.

“By safeguarding only the video that shows people in motion, we economized on the jail’s storage costs,” said Anthony. “Moreover, correctional officers can find video evidence of an incident without having to plod through hours of uneventful images.” The feeds from the cameras, which vary between high-definition and VGA depending on the sensitivity of the locations surveilled, are forwarded over the fiber-optic Gigabit Ethernet network to three Dell PowerConnect 6248P switches.

The switches send the data to two Dell PowerEdge R510 JetStor RAID Arrays at Inyo County Jail. The jail’s video surveillance system was designed and installed by the American Security Group.

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JetStor meets the evolving needs for data storage, protection, and management. We leverage leading technologies to offer high-value solutions for NAS, SANs, clouds, and hyper-converged infrastructures (HCIs).  Since 1994, our customers have spanned virtually every industry, and range from Fortune 500 enterprises to small and medium-sized firms.  We support environments from data centers and clouds to branch offices and remote sites.