Milestone XProtect With Wasabi Surveillance Cloud

How do I use Milestone XProtect with Wasabi Surveillance Cloud?

Wasabi Surveillance Cloud is validated for use with Milestone XProtect Video Management Software. XProtect's flexible open platform allows you to scale your video solutions.

 Video

1. Prerequisites

• Active Wasabi Surveillance Cloud storage account 

• Milestone XProtect VMS Software Version 23.1a and prior

• Wasabi Surveillance Cloud Software 2.0.0.1

Note - For activation and installation of Wasabi Surveillance Cloud software instructions, please refer to this Wasabi Surveillance Cloud - Download and Install instructions article.

2. Pre-Configuration Steps

1. Create a bucket in your Wasabi account via the Wasabi Console.

2. If you don't have an access and secret key pair (API Keys), you can create one by following these instructions Creating a Wasabi API Access Key Set.

3. Configuration for Replication/Disaster Recovery

1. Start the Milestone XProtect Management Client application. Click on the Disaster Recovery option in the site navigation menu, and then click on Enable in the right window. See screenshot below for reference.

2. Enter the following info as explained below -

   Server URL - Set this to the appropriate region service URL (Use Wasabi Service URLs for reference)

   Access Key - Paste your WSC Account access key here

   Secret Key - Paste your WSC Account secret key associated with the access key above, here

   Click on List buckets and select the bucket you would like to use as the target for the recordings. 

Note: This configuration example discusses the use of Wasabi's us-east-1 storage region. To use other Wasabi storage regions, please use the appropriate Wasabi service URL as described in our Wasabi Service URLs.

Hit OK when done.

Note - Make sure to select a DIFFERENT bucket/container for EACH volume

3. To start the replication process, switch the “Inactive” to “Active” (top right). Within a few minutes (depending how many cameras and files are managed), Wasabi Surveillance Cloud software will start replicating and display the % of local data that has been replicated to the cloud.

Note: After all existing files have been replicated, this number will typically be just shy of 100%, unless you stop the camera streams or the recording server in order for the most current data to reach your Wasabi target.

4. Configuration for Storage Extension

Use the Extension option to make your local volume appear bigger and infinitely scalable. This functionality can be activated on your Recording storage(s), your Archive(s), or both. It can be activated with or without Disaster Recovery. When activated with Disaster Recovery, Extension uses a subset of the data already replicated on the DR target.

1. Select the Wasabi Surveillance Cloud “Extension” tab

Note - For each volume where Extension is desired, click “Enable" as shown above.

2. If Disaster Recovery has already been configured for this volume, you will NOT be prompted for your storage account details as your data does NOT get replicated twice. The same bucket will be used.

   Make sure to select a DIFFERENT bucket for EACH volume.

3. Choose “By Age” to keep camera data locally for a specific amount of time or choose “By Size” to keep it until your local drive reaches a specified capacity threshold. When either condition is met, content is removed and replaced by zero-byte stub files. Data is safely kept in the Wasabi bucket until the retention time set on your storage volume is met. Make sure to maintain enough “free” space on your recording drive to ensure Milestone has enough room to continue recording during an internet outage.

4. To start the replication process, switch from “Inactive” to “Active” (top right). Within a minute, Surveillance Cloud will display the % of local data that has been replicated to the cloud.

5. Smart Client Video Playback

1. To review or playback any Video that is stored in your Wasabi Cloud bucket this can be accessed by logging into the Milestone Smart Client application and simply playing back the time period that you need to review. 

2. You can tell the status and location of the video on the timeline by looking at the legend information and the current color of the video selection being played back.

6. Additional Configuration Information

Disaster Recovery Policy
Mirror Copies the customer data to the cloud. Both data sets are identical (the one on-prem, and one in the cloud) Bridge makes a full copy of local data to the cloud for redundancy.

Storage Extension Settings
In this case, Instead of a mirror copy, you're simply extending the capability of local storage to the cloud. The older data is in the cloud, while the newest data sits locally. After X number of days, the data is deleted from the local drive to free up on-prem capacity, but data is still in the cloud if/when it needs to be accessed.

Disaster Recovery + Storage Extension
By combining both options, as soon as the data lands on disk, it replicates to the cloud. Data is only deleted from the local drive when it hits the retention (perhaps 7th day, whatever the customer requires), then it's off the local drive but you can still retrieve it instantly from the cloud