The Next Generation

• By Matt Fishback
• Jul 26, 2024

Video security technology has reached an inflection point. With advancements in cloud infrastructure and internet bandwidth, hybrid cloud solutions can now deliver new capabilities and business opportunities for security professionals and their customers.

Within a hybrid cloud architecture, VMS makes use of both on-prem and cloud resources. This enables users to choose the appropriate configuration for specific locations to best leverage existing equipment, team skills, bandwidth and budget concerns to meet the location's objectives. With hybrid video security technologies, organizations can use the cloud where it makes sense from a corporate, regional, and local level.

Advantages of the Hybrid Model
Transitioning to a hybrid cloud video solution brings many advantages. For end users, organizations can design systems to match their unique requirements across issues such as upfront costs, future flexibility needs, security levels, and desired business insights. For integrators, recurring revenue services become possible around remote monitoring, ongoing maintenance, and managed storage. The hybrid approach delivers significant advantages over traditional on-prem only security systems.

Reduced upfront costs. Businesses can reduce initial hardware investments since most of the video storage and infrastructure resides in the cloud. Cloud subscriptions allow predictable operating expenditures rather than significant capital investments.

Easy scalability. Cloud infrastructure enables rapid scalability to instantly add cameras, locations and features without waiting weeks for server hardware and installation. Temporary needs like seasonal retail locations can spin up and down quickly. <>>Enhanced cybersecurity. Leading cloud providers have best-in-industry physical and operational security layers to protect video data with the latest cybersecurity protocols.

New analytics and insights: An ecosystem of integrated analytics apps unlocks new site-wide operational insights beyond security, like retailer customer engagement analytics, operations and facility maintenance evaluations and more. Also, a single-pane-of-glass approach is an additional benefit where organizations can have their video stored on premises but be managed in the cloud.

The integration of open-platform video management software is critical to enabling these hybrid deployments. With an open VMS acting as the hub connecting local and cloud video infrastructure, users gain access to an expanding ecosystem of integrated third-party applications for expanded capabilities. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud customers benefit from thousands of AWS Marketplace video and analytics tools that integrate seamlessly with an open platform VMS. This allows AWS users to quickly evaluate leading-edge capabilities without added complexity.

Additionally, there will always be uncertainty regarding hardware requirements for future AI/ML/video analytic needs. We do know that as the technology expands, the hardware requirements will increase. With cloud integration, the user can request more computing and storage capacity as needed and deploy the technology.

Improving Business Outcomes
Hybrid cloud video security provides tangible benefits beyond core capabilities that directly improve the operations and economics of an integrator's business. Cloud connectivity allows remote management and support, enabling security teams to troubleshoot and tune client video networks without costly onsite visits. This increases customer satisfaction through faster response times, enhances business efficiency and reduces expenses from unneeded truck rolls.

Furthermore, cloud infrastructure unlocks new subscription-based services around centralized health monitoring, cyber protection and video storage. This helps maximize recurring monthly revenue for integrators while embedding them more deeply as innovation partners rather than one-time project fulfillers.

On a broader scale, integrated data from across client sites reduces maintenance costs through optimized licensing management and bulk device updates. It also provides comprehensive usage statistics and trends, demonstrating growth opportunities and unlocking new business development potential with new and existing customers. With these advantages, hybrid video security solutions offer a solid business foundation for end users and integrators.

Unlocking the Value of Recorded Data
A significant opportunity presented by hybrid cloud video security is the ability to harness the vast amounts of video data collected by organizations. Industry convention estimates that less than 2% of all video data is viewed live or retrieved later, meaning that most of the captured footage goes unused. However, with the right tools and infrastructure, this dormant data can be transformed into an asset.

By leveraging the processing power and analytics capabilities of the cloud, organizations can extract new insights from their archived video. For example, retailers can analyze customer foot traffic patterns across multiple locations to optimize store layouts and product placement. Manufacturers can use video data to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in their production lines. Cities can analyze traffic flows to improve urban planning and reduce congestion.

The key to unlocking this potential is a combination of ample, cost-effective storage and powerful analytics tools — hybrid cloud solutions can provide both.

Video security professionals have been waiting for the cloud to become a viable way to offer their customers more capabilities and to extend their business models, but a few things had to come together. Reliability and security concerns, bandwidth and infrastructure limitations, ROI drivers, and the need for a viable solution and support ecosystem that surpassed, or at least rival existing on-premises systems needed to be developed. With many recent business and technology advances addressing these concerns, the cloud has opened the door to fast, flexible VMS deployments, highly scalable remote connectivity, and new video data storage and processing possibilities.

As video security advances into the digital transformation era, investing in scalable hybrid cloud solutions helps future-proof organizations with improved system use, economics and resilience. With the right open platform VMS to enable broad integration capabilities, innovative security teams can maximize cloud potential.

This article originally appeared in the July / August 2024 issue of Security Today.