Cape Town-based Linux solutions provider Redlinx has built a high-end digital video recording appliance based on open-source software.
The solution runs on Suse Enterprise Linux and MySQL for a highly scalable and customisable solution to all security woes.
According to Sean van der Walt, Redlinx MD, the system is specifically designed to offer fast response times on both recording and playback. The appliance server can stream video through a web browser, making live video accessible on a local or wide area network, and some fancy driver programming by Redlinx has it integrating with both IP and analogue video cameras.
One of the main features of the software is the ability to program customised events based on motion detection in certain areas of a picture (called “regions of interest”).
At a border crossing, for instance, the system can alert the nearest border patrol if someone decides to emigrate without the bureaucracy, either through an alarm, e-mail or SMS. The feeds can also be programmed to record only if there’s movement, or at certain times of the day, saving on the rather hefty hard-drive requirements of video capture.
Redlinx hasn’t done any installations yet apart from an internal roll-out, but is in talks with security companies for sites of up to 200 cameras. Van der Walt says the appliance for an installation of this size would cost between R20 000 and R100 000, depending on the storage requirements.
Van der Walt says one of the biggest engineering tasks was making the system rough and rugged, with high-shock hard drives capable of taking a beating. (It’s hard to imagine the environment where an appliance server takes 400G shocks — then again, security is a strange business.)
The other trick was building the necessary drivers, and integrating various pieces of open-source software into a single solution. The appliance comes in 1U, 2U and 4U flavours. — Tectonic