Casino Resort Unifies Surveillance Storage Across Expanding Camera Network with StoneFly USO

Organization

A multi-property casino resort in the United States managing gaming floors, hotel facilities, parking complexes and back-of-house operations. The organization employs more than 3,000 team members across the campus and operates approximately 420 surveillance cameras — with plans to add another 180 higher-resolution units covering gaming areas, cash-handling zones, entrances and parking.

Industry

Hospitality | Casino Resort & Entertainment

Challenges

The casino resort’s surveillance expansion began as a straightforward 180-camera capacity purchase across gaming floors, cash-handling areas, entrances, parking facilities and back-of-house locations. 

A deeper review revealed that recording quality, retention periods by camera group, concurrent access profiles and evidence export requirements demanded differentiated storage tiers — and its existing monolithic system could not serve these workloads efficiently or scale without heavy over-provisioning.

The organization needed simultaneous continuous high-frame-rate video streaming with evidence retrieval for investigations, real-time analytics processing and appropriate RAID protection throughout the surveillance infrastructure. Each camera group carried its own performance tier — block aligned to the VMS data path, file access for shared footage review and AWS-compatible S3 object storage for compliant archive workflows where supported.

Gaming regulators impose strict footage-retention requirements that create additional complexity. Daily surveillance loops require fourteen-day retention while incident-zone recordings need multi-year preservation with integrity guarantees — two tiers with incompatible service-level agreements on a single legacy platform.

“Managing three separate silos for our surveillance operations was a constant struggle. We knew early that the camera expansion exposed fundamentally different workload requirements and needed one system to handle them intelligently. ”

— — Thomas, Infrastructure Director

Solution

The casino deployed StoneFly Unified Scale Out (USO) Storage appliance to consolidate three separate surveillance storage silos into one unified platform. Block storage provides primary VMS recording via iSCSI, file-based NFS delivers shared footage review where camera groups require it and a scalable capacity tier extends long-term video retention without repeated infrastructure refresh cycles.

Additionally, S3-compatible object storage supports compliant archive and evidence-preservation workflows across multiple footage-retention tiers — while ensuring that evidence-preservation use remains separate from the primary recording path unless each camera system’s VMS supports direct S3 writes. The StoneFusion-powered unified namespace presents distributed storage as one environment for management and access.

The platform delivers active-active RAID controllers, redundant power supplies, high-speed network connectivity and comprehensive fault tolerance — all essential features for continuous surveillance operations where system downtime translates directly into security gaps. Centralized web-based management simplifies administration across every storage tier.

“A platform that serves SAN, NAS and object storage in one framework gave us exactly the tiering we needed across every workload without bolting on add-ons. ”

— — Thomas, Infrastructure Director

Results

With the StoneFly Unified Scale Out (USO) Storage platform deployed, the casino consolidated three separate surveillance storage silos into one efficient unified system — ensuring that every workload receives exactly what it needs without costly over-provisioning. The organization now has a foundation ready for camera expansion and evolving retention requirements.

Unified Surveillance Storage Architecture

StoneFly USO consolidates block, file and object storage services on one platform — replacing the disparate silos that previously served different camera groups. The CASINO RESORT now benefits from a single management plane covering SAN-based VMS recording, NAS-based shared footage review and S3-compatible object storage for compliant archive workflows.

Scalable Storage Capacity for Future Growth

The organization can now expand storage capacity and performance independently as camera counts grow from 420 toward approximately 600 — supporting both the 180 planned higher-resolution units and any future additions. Media tiering within USO accommodates fast-recording workloads alongside cost-effective long-term archive.

Multi-Tiered Performance for Diverse Workloads

Block storage handles primary VMS recording aligned to the camera system’s preferred data path, while NAS provides shared access where needed. S3-compatible object storage supports evidence-preservation workflows on separate retention tiers — all served simultaneously from StoneFusion-managed unified storage that eliminates SLA conflicts across camera groups.

Centralized Storage Management Across Campus

StoneFusion-powered StoneFly USO delivers active-active RAID controllers, redundant power supplies and high-speed network connectivity — providing fault-tolerant access across every surveillance zone from gaming floor to parking lot. Centralized web-based management simplifies administration of all storage tiers.

“StoneFusion gave us the unified platform we needed — every camera and workload tier on one system instead of separate silos. ”

— — Thomas, Infrastructure Director

Looking to Unify Your Surveillance Storage? Contact Us Today!

Contact us to discuss your video surveillance storage requirements at [email protected] or call +1 510 265 1616.