Cloud Solutions Rise Above On-Premises

Flexibility and Scalability Lead to Increased Migrations

Over the past three years, one of the hottest trends within the security market has been the growing demand for cloud-based video services. While many environments still have on-premises solutions, an increasing number of businesses see advantages in moving to the cloud.

The cloud delivers new efficiencies while reducing the complexity of video management, but, for many years, businesses were slow to embrace the technology. Common concerns have included bandwidth, data security, and scalability. Management of video streaming and capture in the cloud is improving, and the benefits of moving video management to the cloud now outweigh the drawbacks. From single-site locations with a few cameras up to multi-site operations with thousands of devices, video cloud services are easy to use, cost effective, and proven to provide significant value. They have become essential components of a proactive and reliable video security strategy.

Video Is Now Cloud-Ready

Many organizations have adopted a “cloud-first” strategy, with serious questions being raised if a workload is not capable of being run and managed in the cloud.

The challenges of managing hardware, especially at the edge, remain significant, so businesses with tens, hundreds, or even thousands of edge locations are solving the problem by moving to a cloud-heavy, edge-light strategy. Video was historically an outlier for several reasons, and it was not uncommon to have locally sourced break-fix companies providing services. Now, though, including video surveillance in the cloud-heavy, edge-light strategy offers benefits to both CIOs and CSOs, and cloud video services offer a mechanism to support this strategy.

On-Premises Equals Inflexibility

Data is being stored and delivered in vastly different ways than 20 years ago. Leading technology companies provide data storage and management on a subscription basis that allows customers to turn services and capacity on and off depending on current requirements.

It is becoming harder to justify the estimation and guesswork associated with forecasting a three or five-year purchasing cycle for on-premises video infrastructure. This led, in part, to the rise of hyper-converged infrastructure for on-premises workloads, including video surveillance, but this is little more than a Band-Aid.

Being able to migrate a video surveillance workload to the cloud and further depopulate the corporate data center will provide a massive advantage for companies that are investing heavily in their cloud strategy.

Migrate Your Way

It has become clear that cloud-based services are the future for both small to medium-sized businesses and enterprise organizations. As more and more companies see what the technology can do, there is a growing desire to transition video surveillance and data storage to the cloud, but this process requires a strategic approach.

Organizations must consider their current technology needs, goals for security and business operations, and the future of the business itself, all of which are dynamic and require flexibility for a smooth transition. Hybrid cloud provides businesses with that transitional opportunity.

Hybrid cloud models offer the best of both worlds, allowing for a mix of on-premises video technology and cloud services. From an integrator perspective, this means obtaining recurring monthly revenue (RMR) and developing a long-term relationship with the customer. From an end user perspective, this means increased functionality without sacrificing the feature-rich and powerful video surveillance that is critical to modern organizations.

Secure Video Data

With cyberattacks such as SolarWinds and Colonial Pipeline seemingly always in the news, the cybersecurity challenge can appear overwhelming.

Cloud service providers must be deeply and relentlessly focused on ensuring the security of systems and services. Working with proven cloud providers provides a secure infrastructure base, but it is also important to examine other areas.

Compliance with System and Organization Controls 2 Type 2 ensures that information security practices, policies, procedures and operations meet appropriate thresholds for security and confidentiality. SOC 2 is an auditing procedure that ensures service providers securely manage customer data. Developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, SOC 2 defines criteria for managing customer data based on trust principles that every provider should incorporate in security and compliance initiatives.

Cloud service providers must ensure the utmost security of video data, and organizations should seek a partner that continually searches for new ways to provide data protection. The threat environment demands a commitment to reassess security protocols today, tomorrow and in the years ahead.

Designed to Scale

One of the essential features of cloud architecture is that it is built to scale, so it can be modified as businesses evolve and grow. As processing, storage and camera requirements change, the cloud’s scalability enables organizations to increase or decrease usage without worrying about outdated software or hardware.

While cloud flexibility typically refers to its scalability, the term can also apply to its ability to provide organizations with options regarding system access. On-premises solutions are more rigid because they can typically only be controlled through a specific physical location. In contrast, cloud-based systems facilitate remote access from any device and location and have granular user permissions to control management roles. This level of flexibility promotes enhanced security efforts and faster response times to potential threats.

Cloud-ready video combined with robust solutions that simplify the adoption of a cloud infrastructure puts a business in an advantageous technological position. As a result, the C-suite is taking a keen interest in the enduring value of cloud migration.