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Tech Tip 12 - Life cycle costs of surveillance systems (continued)

Computers – useful lifecycle of 4 years

It is common for computers and servers to be replaced between the third and fifth year. Hard drives handling the incoming video stream do the most work and are the most likely to fail first. They therefore need to be fast, robust and have some redundancy if they fail to prevent video loss. Uninterrupted power supply increases the longevity of computer equipment and should be considered in conjunction to operating temperature.

From 15% to 40% of installation cost can apply to computers together with storage depending on the amount of storage required. Good video management systems combined with 64-bit operating systems and well-specified computers can greatly reduce the number of computers per site by increasing the number of cameras per server. Virtualising servers is also a technique used to ensure computing resources are used more efficiently. There is a great trend for IT departments to use their preferred brand of commercially-off-the-shelf equipment (COTS) as opposed to more expensive proprietary boxed solutions with less efficiency. An added benefit is that COTS equipment will be more technologically up to date than proprietary solutions and be easier to maintain by IT professionals.

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