Four Tech Trends Shaping Today’s Video Surveillance Industry

Cloud-based solutions, big data, artificial intelligence and managed services all are poised to revolutionize the security industry.

It is an exciting time to be involved in the security industry. The pace of technological advancement is such that the rate of development seems to outpace even our most fantastical imaginings. Today, technologies are arriving swiftly, filling roles we never could have dreamed and maturing more quickly than ever.

With such swift innovation, however, it is imperative that we stay abreast of important technological developments and trends and understand how they add value to the security industry.

The Evolving Role of Cloud-Based Video Management System (VMS) Solutions

Remember the good old days of CDs and DVDs for your music and videos? Those days are long gone along with the stores and businesses who used to sell them. Today the majority of the world streams music and movies. We store and manage almost everything we do electronically in the cloud.

This is the same with the devices we carry and the computers we use every day, which have become mostly user interface devices. The applications and software programs are largely subscription-based services managed, updated and maintained on cloud servers. Today when we need to replace a device, we log in and restore from the cloud. Cloud backup subscription services have been around for years and are growing because they leverage the shared cost of necessary hardware and the low cost of storage.

There is no debate that in the very near future, our industry will not be installing video management hardware with on-site video and data storage in the local server racks of end-user customers. Some manufacturers in our industry are already embracing this technology and developing the VMS solutions of the future. The obstacle of affordable and available bandwidth is quickly disappearing. The facts are that these clouds have already been built and that they are being widely used by every other industry. While some may argue that managing video is totally different, this trend is not going away, and our industry must embrace this or ignore it to our peril.

The Internet of Things (IoT), Managing Big Data and Cybersecurity

With each passing year, big data continues to proliferate, reaching every aspect of our lives. Data is collected and streaming from everything imaginable today thus the term IoT. From the phones we carry, to the cars we drive and the refrigerators which store our foods, data sensors are being used in our homes, at our schools, in our businesses and industries and all across the cities of our country.

This gathering of information is scary to some and raises legitimate concerns over who has access to the data and how we secure it. Beyond the cybersecurity issues, there are important questions about how the collected data will be used and what we can do to protect our individual privacy.

There is also a proliferation of data analysis companies specializing in software designed to collect, analyze and generate meaningful reporting on this wealth of collected data. These companies understand that data is knowledge and the value of that knowledge can create measurable return on investment. Businesses and industry use collected data, too, as they continue to look for ways to become more productive and efficient and thus more competitive by producing more with less. In spite of this global trend, the video surveillance industry has generally been slow to realize the value in integrating their systems with this data.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Video Surveillance

There are many definitions for AI, and the term is thrown around these days for many things that are not actually AI. Many of the analytics used in video surveillance are being touted as AI when, in fact, they are heavily dependent on human intervention, monitoring and programming.
When examining the future of AI in video surveillance, I believe the industry should focus on the subset of AI called machine learning. In this area of AI, new technological advances in video analytics should actually learn and adapt accordingly to their assigned tasks, without the intervention of humans. Future video surveillance management software will include elements of this self-learning ability and will apply AI to the vast amounts of data they collect in addition to studying the video images themselves.

One example already being developed and deployed is predictive analytics, a basic function of AI machine learning. In this application of AI, the system learns over time and determines the statistical probability of predetermined events. Basing these predictions on solid historical data and patterns, collected and measured, leading to similar events. Expect to see this technology become standard in the future.

Opportunities in Managed Services

Many who read this article may find humor in my stating that the security industry as a whole lags behind other industries in adopting proven technology and methodology. Many of the best technologies we use today in video surveillance were proven and used for many years in the consumer electronics or IT world before ever being adopted into our industry.
Managed services agreements (MSAs) are similar because they have been used in the IT world for as long as I can remember. Statistically, according to CompTIA’s Buying Guide for Managed Services, 64 percent of organizations in 2016 were using some form of managed services. The study went on to say that the managed services market was expected to grow to $193 billion by 2020, a growth rate of 12.5 percent. Today MSAs in IT are being used by an estimated 80 percent of businesses and organizations

The leaders in the IT world realized long ago that it was easier to sell a managed services agreement that included all necessary hardware, software and support, which essentially amortized the expense over a 3- to 5-year term. For most organizations, budgeting an annual operational expense (opex) was easier than obtaining approvals for a large capital investment (capex). So why not apply the same strategy to video surveillance?

A video surveillance system is just another information technology solution consisting of servers, switches and other network components that manages data. So why does our industry not embrace the MSA model, so overwhelmingly popular in other areas of the IT world?

As our industry continues to evolve into cloud-based management systems, intelligent solutions with AI machine learning and systems designed to manage and integrate big data with video images, managed services create the ideal business model. Like other untapped areas of our industry, offering an MSA program creates great opportunities for growth and creating a substantial recurring monthly revenue model for the video surveillance market.