Hey You, Get Onto My Cloud
The ups and downs of cloud-powered retail video surveillance
- By Martin Renkis
- Nov 01, 2012
We live in an amazing era of computing that allows almost
anyone to view images and videos from around the world
on their device of choice with just a few clicks. This appears
simple to do, but what is really happening in the background
is the “global cloud” of thousands of computers
working together using the Internet.
The cloud brings everyday benefits like email, online banking and storing family
photos, and it continues to grow in our personal and business lives as we move
important data and services from our local laptops and computers to the online
cloud. Some retailers use cloud technologies to power their surveillance for more
efficient security—and more efficient business.
There are many reasons retail surveillance is using the cloud. The benefits of
cloud-powered surveillance include live remote monitoring and recorded video
searching from a single website, online video storage, collaborative sharing of
video clips and centralized management and maintenance of cameras and servers.
The benefits of the cloud network propel surveillance from a tool for loss prevention
and human resources into an engine for enterprise business management.
“We use our cloud-powered video surveillance solution to not only reduce
shrink, theft and improve security at our stores, but also to watch customer behavior,
which helps us improve store layouts and merchandising,” said Scott Hughes,
of Tasti D-Lite. “In addition, we use the cloud to observe and train our employees
to deliver better customer service and higher conversion rates.”
If cloud-powered surveillance were simple, everyone would be doing it. However,
one challenge prevents rapid adoption, and the good news is that it can be
conquered. The main obstacle to cloud surveillance is the “B” word—bandwidth.
Just to give you an idea of how big video is, one retail store with five HD cameras
needs an upload speed of about 10 MBps for real-time online cloud video
recording. In comparison, your PoS transactions are running at a maximum of
about 2.4 KBps. Video can be 4,000 times bigger than that, or more.
If you are one of the lucky ones who is bandwidth blessed or has a rich uncle
in the Internet connection business, cloud-powered surveillance becomes quite a
bit more simple. Surveillance cameras can be connected to your network, and they
can record video directly to the cloud using the Internet. The limit of this system
is the limit of your bandwidth. If you are on a budget with slow connections, all
hope is not lost because there are cloud-powered solutions that can work well.
The simple answer to the bandwidth problem is to not jam the upload pipe
full of data and to keep bandwidth to the Internet as low as possible. This can be
achieved by storing the majority of the large HD video files on a low-cost server
at the retail store and using the upload bandwidth in a smart way with video optimization
technologies that control video delivery based on bandwidth. Limiting
the upload bandwidth would also require uploading only the important “shared”
files, not all of the video files, and uploading video only when needed or during
off hours.
Even multiple-location stores that use cost-effective and slow bandwidth can
benefit from this type of cloud-powered surveillance.
“All of our stores are connected to the Internet using a DSL connection that
only offers 175 KBps upload speed,” said Scott Portis, CEO of Cannon Management.
“Even with ensuring that our PoS transactions always go through, I am able
to log into our cloud surveillance system to see what my customers and employees
are doing at all of our stores from one easy-to-use website or from my iPad.”
Once retail stores are connected with cloud-powered surveillance, the value of
this new network is multiplied. The surveillance cloud creates opportunities to
monitor up to thousands of retail stores from a single Web interface. A surveillance
system running on a high-speed global cloud like Microsoft, Skype Cloud,
Google or YouTube Cloud can support instant access to live and recorded video
from any camera or server, at almost any location worldwide.
Cloud solutions can offer an interface presenting options such as “show all cash
registers at the 97 southern Florida stores” or “show entrances at all 21 New York
City stores.” These views are combination views of cameras from different locations
in one interface.
Using the surveillance cloud to help with employee training and store layout
can drive revenue. A billion-dollar retailer uses cloud-powered surveillance to
help design better store layouts and merchandise placement. Using their cloud,
the company’s managers sit at the corporate headquarters in the United States and watch customers interact with
their products in Europe, all in real
time. They also have the capability to
quickly search through recorded video,
collaboratively share video clips online
and download HD video to analyze
trends offline.
A common concern with moving
video data over a global cloud is security.
Is cloud-powered video surveillance
secure enough for you? It is for the U.S.
government.
“[Cloud] architecture would seem at
first glance to be vulnerable to insider
threats—indeed, no system that human
beings use can be made immune
to abuse, but we are convinced the controls
and tools that will be built into the
cloud will ensure that people cannot
see any data beyond what they need for
their jobs and will be swiftly identified
if they make unauthorized attempts to
access data,” said Army General Keith
Alexander, director of the National Security
Agency.
Beyond NSA, the Government Services
Administration selected Gmail
cloud email from Google for all of its
15,000 employees. One of the key benefits
of public cloud security over local
or private cloud security is the resources
that large providers such as Microsoft
and Google invest in security. They get
the latest gear, hire the best experts, and
proactively protect their cloud as if their
reputation depends on it. Due to this
investment and commitment from these
large organizations, threats can be more
quickly identified and addressed. Is it
perfect? No. If you put your video on
a USB drive under your bed, it’s almost
guaranteed to be safe, but then you can’t
share it to help drive your business!
Future-proof technology
It’s a fact that technology continues to
change rapidly. One of the key features
of cloud-powered surveillance is that it
can be “future proof.” As new higherresolution
cameras, advanced analytics
and other features are introduced, a
cloud platform can upgrade as requirements
change.
Although no company claims to
make “hard to use” products, it’s safe to
say that cloud-powered surveillance solutions
tend to be easier to use because
they are Web-friendly. This means they
are designed to work on almost any
computer—Windows or Apple—in
almost any Web browser, without special
software to be installed (such as
ActiveX). Running in a Web browser
makes it simple for anyone from loss
prevention, human resources or even
marketing to log in and get the video
he or she needs. Web-based systems
also reduce installation, training and
maintenance costs usually required
from systems that need special plug-ins
or software.
We are entering an amazing new era
of retail video surveillance powered by
the cloud, which is not only here to stay
but growing at a tremendous rate.
Over the next two years, cloud-based
business intelligence and analytics
will grow 84 percent annually, according
to a new survey from Saugatuck
Technologies. With this move to cloudbased
business systems, an investment
in cloud surveillance will no longer be
based only on benefits from loss prevention
and liability management. It
will naturally expand to include visual
business intelligence such as customer
and employee management, merchandising,
store layout and financial performance.
Are you
ready to get onto the
cloud?
This article originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of Security Today.