Dos and Don’ts with Surveillance Bridge

What Surveillance Bridge does

• Bridge uses stub-files (pointers) to free up local space while maintaining access to the cloud
• Bridge deletes content in the cloud when local files (or stub files) are deleted
• In some cases (VMS specific), Bridge can synthesize video data (either black frames or informational messages) if cloud is not accessible.
• Bridge moves data to/from local disk and cloud
• Bridge is extremely resilient. If system is rebooted or internet connectivity is lost, it resumes operations automatically
• Bridge can recover data from the cloud when the Disaster Recovery feature is enabled
  
  

What Surveillance Bridge will NOT do

• Bridge will NOT delete content in the cloud, unless local files are deleted
• Bridge will NOT interact with the VMS database
  
  

How the VMS interacts with Surveillance Bridge

• The VMS always reads and writes from/to the local drive (Bridge streams data from the cloud)
• The VMS sees a local drive that can contain an infinite amount of recordings
• The VMS sees a stub-file (just a pointer to the cloud) exactly like it sees a regular file
• The VMS will keep writing to the physical disk as long as there is free space
  
  

What to look for

• The VMS’s retention period defines when recordings are deleted (local & cloud)
• Evidence locks remain in the cloud as long as the VMS does not delete them
• Archiver’s storage “Max Size” setting on Management Client must take into account local drive AND cloud capacities
• It is VERY important that the VMS NEVER runs out of local disk space as the archiver may attempt to delete stubs, thinking it is making space – but deleting stubs doesn’t make local space, it only deletes content in the cloud.
  
  

What NOT to do

• Never delete files on the local drive unless you also want to delete the associated content in the cloud
• Do NOT use backup software on a Bridge-managed disk because backup software cannot backup stub-files and will restore garbage instead of pointers to cloud.
• Do NOT uninstall Bridge or stop its services. If you need to stop them, make sure to restart them promptly as access to stub will result in file unavailable.
• Avoid moving cameras to a different archiver, as all associated recordings will need to be retrieved from the cloud. Such operation should be properly planned and executed.
  
  

It is perfectly safe to

• It is safe to stop or reboot the archiver (or any other VMS component)
• It is safe for the VMS to rebuild its database(s)
• It is safe to perform ALL normal VMS operations and run all supported plug-ins
• It is safe to temporarily lose connection to the cloud (as long as there is sufficient disk space locally to keep recording during the outage)

*** WHEN IN DOUBT, CONTACT SUPPORT@TIGER-SURVEILLANCE.COM ***

Contact us for special services such as Site Survey, Configuration, Disaster Recovery, Swapping Servers, Swapping Drives, Swapping Cloud, etc.