The surveillance workload creates a substantial persistent-capacity requirement across every location. Even at the stated minimum of ten cameras, each store generates approximately 240 GB per day and roughly 3.36 TB over fourteen days before considering filesystem overhead, redundancy, additional cameras, or growth. A scalable IP-based shared-storage architecture is therefore the appropriate option.
Cisco Unified Edge is designed around integrated high-speed Ethernet networking and supports network-accessible storage through standard IP mechanisms. Cisco's validated Unified Edge guidance describes network storage using protocols such as NFS and iSCSI , while explicitly noting that Fibre Channel is not validated in that design. Unified Edge also supports software-defined and distributed storage architectures carried over its Ethernet infrastructure.
Fibre Channel would introduce specialized SAN adapters, switches, cabling, and operational complexity that are generally inappropriate for a cost-sensitive, highly distributed retail edge. InfiniBand is optimized for specialized high-performance computing rather than economical video retention. Local storage could hold surveillance data at each store, but the question explicitly requires a centralized storage solution and long-term capacity that can be managed across locations.
IP-based shared storage therefore provides the best combination of scalability, standardization, cost efficiency, and Unified Edge compatibility.
Study Guide Reference: AI Infrastructure Components and Architecture — edge AI storage, IP storage, scalability, capacity, and deployment requirements.
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