Case Study: Tufts University achieves zero‑downtime, scalable campus video surveillance with NetApp E‑Series storage

Tufts University: Setting the Curve for Campus Safety

Tufts University, with three Boston‑area campuses and more than 11,000 students, launched a Video Security on Campus initiative after the 2013 Boston Marathon attack to centralize and expand its disparate, DVR‑based camera systems. The campus police needed an enterprise‑grade storage and VMS solution that could provide continuous, real‑time access to HD video, cost‑effective long‑term retention, and scalable growth across geographically distributed sites.

Tufts deployed exacqVision VMS with Axis 1080p cameras on centralized NetApp E‑Series storage (reconfigured to an Ubuntu FC SAN), a solution that the IT team easily provisioned without added headcount. The NetApp platform delivers 238TB of managed video, scale‑out capacity, dual controllers and multipathing for high availability (zero downtime to date), up to 12 months of retention, and the performance needed for simultaneous real‑time HD streams—allowing the university to expand coverage affordably and reliably.

Tufts University

Cope Frazier

Storage Specialist