Colin McNamara - CCIE 18233 , VCP, EMCIE, NCDA, GEEK » mars

Simplifying remote site security with Cisco’s new video surveillance modules on the ISR

colinmcnamara — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:31:13 +0000

One giant pain I have always faced when working with high security environments is dealing with surveillance systems. They are a necessary and required part of your security infrastructure. However they just never seem to integrate as well as your network, storage, or server devices.

When I work with data center infrastructure I expect the following – clean, remotely manageable, secure devices that runs on the same power and similar cabling, and everything can have a 24x7x4 support contract for hardware replacement. For the most part, you get this when dealing with Cisco, HP, Sun and similar manufacturers.

More often then not (with a few very cool exceptions), when I run into video surveillance infrastructure the video management infrastructure runs on some random third tier manufactured server. It never fails that the video management software is on Windows (normally XP or win2k). I have even seen some systems where the vendor requires you to have a session open to run the software.

And then when you get to the encoders themselves, it never fails. You have two choices.

The Uber package that can run a Casino, Identify and track dust mites , and if you point it at space, determine if there is life on mars.
Individual dinky encoders that run one or two camera’s each. They have limited encoding choices, limited camera control, no remote management, and normally run on 110 volt system that require different power distribution then the 220 that is common in systems today.

Cisco’s answer to this mess

Cisco has released both a video management solution, as well as a video encoding solution in a network module form factor for the Integrated Services Router (ISR).

The first part of this system, the Video Management and Storage System (VMSS) module fills the following roles -

Management of multiple video streams from one interface, including IP cameras, 3rd party encoders, and streams from Cisco’s video encoding module
Streaming of live and archived footage through a web browser interface
This one is pretty cool – The module can mount external storage via iSCSI. So, in addition to its 160 gig internal drive, you can mount a filer and utilize external storage to scale the system.
“fast forward” to events, as well as notify security and other personnel through SMS and email

The second part of the system (the module on the left in the picture above) is the Analog Video Gateway Network Module (EV-IPVS-16A). It has a couple functions -

It can take up to 16 analogue video inputs and encode them with MJPEG or MPEG4 codecs
You can use the first two ports to output video to a external monitors
If you are using MPEG4, it can be used as a motion detector (handy for fast forwarding to important events, or triggering alerts)
It can control pan and tilt cameras. This is good for pointing the camera at the janitor unplugging your servers each night to vacuum
You can configure analogue contacts as an alarm. This can be bound to a door switch, or even temperature and water level monitors in a remote data center. This one will be very handy.

The third part of this solution is Cisco’s Video Surveillance Operations Manager. It manages, archives, displays and distributes the content that was created and collected on the two previous modules. You would use this if you had many branches to aggregate, or needed to staff a video wall (e.g. casino gaming commission operations). Now, you can run each of these components individually. Buy run together as a whole, Cisco has an enterprise class security solution.

Want to learn more ?

Branch office security page on cisco.com http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9671/prod_module_series_home.html

Cisco’s product page for the Video Managment Module – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/modules/ps9671/data_sheet_c78_462225.htmlSimilar Posts:

--Colin McNamara

Simplifying remote site security with Cisco’s new video surveillance modules on the ISR

Tags: archived footage, C, camera control, CCIE, center infrastructure, CISCO, cisco secure, Colin, Data Center, dust mites, encoders, Gadget, hardware replacement, HP, ip cameras, isr, legal, life on mars, linux, management infrastructure, mars, mitiigation, Network, network storage, Pic, Power, Router, security, security environments, security infrastructure, storage, storage system, support contract, surveillance systems, switch, Technology, threat, two choices, video encoding, video management, video streams, video surveillance

Usability features in Cisco’s Nexus 7000

colinmcnamara — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:57:31 +0000

Douglas Gourlay, Sr Director, Marketing and Product Management for Cisco’s Data Center Business Unit and writer of Cisco’s Data Center Blog commented on my celebrity sighting post (me and the nexus 7000). He asked two questions regarding my post about the Nexus 7000, and I feel that it best serves everyone to answer them here.

What useability enhancements do you feel are the most beneficial?

A separate, IP enabled, Management Interface. This has been a long time coming. The out of band management interface is very similar to a Ilo card in the HP world. it is effectively a supercharged console server that happens to site on the backplane of the sup engine. I am sure whoever pushed this feature through is going to get flowers one day from a Tech who DIDN’T lock himself out because the management interface was effectively a separate system.
Finally, a functionally USB Interface that I can transfer IOS (well, now NX-OS) images through. Everyone has a USB key nowadays, even my Grandmother has one, it will make life so much easier when I can have a 4 gig key with me that has most IOS / NX-OS versions and my common configs and just pop them right in.
The integrated Cabling system is CLEAN. I love that it forces you to reserve the appropriate space for cabling, and that there finally is the possibility to avoid the flying spaghetti train wreck we see so often in Data Centers.
Front to back Cooling. The cooling design is well thought out. I liked the fact that it draws from directly above the front floor and exits rear top.. This should help out in raised floor data centers that have a large temperature gradient as you move to the top of the rack. It also negates problem of having multiple 6500 chassis side to side and having warm air blowing from the exhaust of one 6500 to the intake of another 6500.
Fan Slots are now placed where it is IMPOSSIBLE to cover with cables. I would say 7 out of 10 times when I walk into a new customers Data Center I find that there are cables run directly over the fan tray with no slack. That is not a failure in design per say, but it could have been avoided. With the Nexus 7000 fan trays in the back the problem is solved before it is created.
Power supplies are in the back . FAR away from the data cabling. It never fails that 20 amp circuits get uncomfortably close to copper cabling. By moving the power supplies to the back side of the chassis, this becomes a mute point and we remove any shadow of a doubt about EM interference causing craziness in our cabling.
This one sounds really mundane, but a quick heads up grouping of status lights. In the past these were normally in a position where you had to squat down to see them, or they are obscured by cables. Buy putting them on the front of the cable tray assembly it ensures these will always be visible.

What can we focus on now to make it a better platform?

One thing that worried me a little was the placement of the compact flash cards in the supervisory module. For those how haven’t it up close look at this picture of the chassis and look for the Grey cover midway up the sup modules in the center slots. Behind them are two flash cards, one for system partition extension, and one to dump log files into. Having these cards available are great features however I could see an operational process of security rotating out the log partitions, or more likely and engineer pulling the flash card after dumping some data for analysis to it, and then pulling the wrong card by accident. Having a simple strap (like the screw downs for power supply plugs) or something similar would go along way towards mitigating that risk.
Continue with the spirit of innovation that has defined Cisco over the years. Cisco has consistently came out with or acquired and integrated many great products that directly address the needs of the market place into the product line (MARS, ASA, AireSpace, TelePresence, MDS, ACE, Etc) but frankly the last GAME CHANGING product that set the industry on its heals and forced everyone to rethink how we utilize technology to accelerate business as a whole was the acquisition of Selsius and the introduction of VOIP as an enterprise class product to the world. I remember having the hair stand up on my arms from the excitement of going up against Avaya and Nortel back then and fighting that uphill battle, educating customers and peers about this “new thing called VOIP and how CallManager (now Unified Communications Manager) is your ticket towards productivity.
When we talk about the Virtual DataCenter, I/O Virtualization (FCOE) and VFrame Automation it is not just another incremental improvement of existing technology. It is a paradigm shift, a leap ahead, a GAME CHANGER. I get the same chills that I did when VOIP was new because I know that those are technologies that will force us to rethink how we approach computing and data systems. These technologies are to the Data Center what IP telephony was to the PBX, and Cisco is the only company with technologies and engineering know how in all the verticals necessary to pull this off.

Tags: blog, C, CISCO, communication, Data Center, DC3.0, DESIGN, enhancements, FCOE, HP, mars, mds, NDA, Nexus, Nexus 7000, NX-OS, Pic, Power, security, Technology, virtualization

Book Review – Security Threat Mitigation and Response: Understanding Cisco Security MARS

colinmcnamara — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 01:35:00 +0000

Book Review – Security Threat Mitigation and Response: Understanding Cisco Security MARS

Security Threat Mitigation and Response: Understanding Cisco Security MARS
by Dale Tesch, Greg Abelar
Publisher: Cisco Press
Pub Date: September 28, 2006
Print ISBN-10: 1-58705-260-1
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-58705-260-6
Pages: 408

This book had so much potential to be a great. Sadly it turned out to be an overgrown technical manual. The author does try to lighten things up by interspersing real world technical details throughout the book, however he could have just written a “hacks” style book with that material and been much better off.

This book is organized into four major divisions. The first, Security threat identification and response challenge reviews basic security theory and response. A network engineer breaking into security may find this interesting. Anyone else can just skip over this chapter.

I actually found the second, CS-MARS theory and operation to be the most useful. The author laid out a pretty good flowchart of the designing process used to process alerts. He also hinted out the back end architecture supporting the device.

The third section, CS-MARS operation was just blatantly lifted from the users guide. The only difference is that the online users guide is organized a little more clearly. I recommend skipping this chapter and going straight to the on-line documentation, you will be much happier.

The fourth section, CS-MARS in action had great potential, however the author just stuck in some really salesy usage scenarios. I can’t reinforce this enough – This needs to be updated. I have been to customer talks where users presented how the MARS box has made their life easier in many ways. The stories presented here do a disservice to the product, and do not highlight the core differentiators that this product offers.

Would I recommend this book? Yes and No. I would recommend that entry level engineers with no security experience, and business users pick this up. Other then that, log onto CCO and just read through the docs. You will learn more in less time. And as a plus, you will have $50 sitting in your wallet still.

http://www.2cups.com

“The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer.”

Tags: blog, C, CCIE, CISCO, cisco secure, Colin, DESIGN, mars, mitiigation, Network, Pic, security, threat