Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Deploys Hybrid Cloud for Digital Evidence Data

The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana has deployed a hybrid cloud with Cloudian’s HyperStore S3-compatible object storage system. The Cloudian solution stores and protects the department’s large volumes of video surveillance, body cam, and digital evidence data, and has reduced costs by more than 50 percent when compared with alternative solutions.

With more than 400 body-worn cameras and at least two cameras in each of its more than 200 patrol and prisoner transport vehicles, this Sheriff’s Office generates a vast amount of data. Digital evidence in the form of crime-scene photos and digital forensic captures from storage devices, computers, tablets, smartphones, and vehicle information systems add to the storage requirement.

Hybrid cloud provides the best of both worlds

To store, manage, and protect this information, the organization deployed a Cloudian S3-compatible storage solution with 600TB of capacity on-premises and replicates data to Amazon S3 for disaster recovery. This provides the best of both worlds: The performance benefits of on-prem storage, combined with the protection of remotely-sited storage (AWS S3).

Costs are reduced, too. Because the primary storage is local, there are no cloud egress fees. And because the cloud storage is only used for DR purposes, a low-cost infrequent access tier can be used.

Why S3 Compatible On-Prem Storage:

• Fast access to data
• No egress charges; keeps costs down
• Access even when network connectivity is unavailable
• Fully S3-API compatible

Why Cloud Storage:

• Remote site for disaster recovery
• Cost-effective; can use infrequent-access storage tier
• Easy to use; policy-based tiering managed by Cloudian

The Cloudian S3-compatible solution is used in conjunction with a video capture and digital evidence management system from Getac. “We needed the performance and locality of storage in our data centers and the enhanced protection of storage in the cloud,” said Adrian Quintela, information technology director at the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office. “With Cloudian, we were able to combine scalable storage on-premises with cloud data-management, all in one platform.”

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To ensure robust data protection, the Calcasieu solution includes policy-based data replication both to a Cloudian system at a remote DR site and to the public cloud. Replication processes are managed entirely via Cloudian’s integrated management tools, thus saving costs and reducing management complexity. Additional cost efficiencies were achieved with the solution’s small footprint. Consuming just 3U of rack height per location, the Cloudian system saved more than 70 percent on space, power, and cooling.

Deploying the Cloudian system was a quick process for the office’s IT team. “It took no more than a day to set up Cloudian at each data center, and the Cloudian support team even helped us resolve a problem that turned out to be unrelated,” said Paul Hite, senior systems engineer at Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office. Quintela added, “Storage availability is critical to our ongoing operations, so it gives us the confidence to know the Cloudian team is ready to help out when needed.”