Why cloud-based security isn't catching on with SMBs

Cloud technology and video surveillance as a service (VSaaS) seem to be an ideal option for SMBs. VSaaS promises low TCO, low maintenance, and the ability to scale up or down according to the business needs. However, bandwidth limitations make it suitable only for residential or very small businesses at the moment.

“Most customers in the small- to medium-sized business market are not opting for cloud storage since it’s still relatively more expensive than local storage over a period of time. Customers prefer a ‘local storage, remote access’ model — that is, the video is stored at the sites, but can be accessed remotely,” added Jumbi Edulbehram, Regional President of Americas at Oncam.

With the reasonable cost of local storage and the limitations and higher cost associated with cloud storage, local storage is preferred by the vast majority. “Remote access is important, and while cloud-managed solutions are great for multi-site management, most single location businesses are happy with local storage as long as they can access it,” said Alex Asnovich, Director of Marketing for North America at Hikvision USA. “That being said, certain higher risk businesses, such as jewelry stores and banks, may opt for a combination of local/cloud or a cloud solution to better secure the video evidence.”

“For medium-sized organizations, integrity of data in the cloud starts to become a consideration and the bandwidth issues resulting in poor performance become the major obstacle to adoption. After all, the medium businesses want to upgrade to IP-enabled and HD surveillance to encourage operational efficiencies, not face bandwidth issues that slow things down and defeat the upgrade decision in the first place,” said Brian Song, MD of IDIS Europe.

Bandwidth limitations make streaming video and cloud storage impractical. Most SMBs do not have the bandwidth necessary to upstream the video in high definition and will have to transmit video at a much lower quality (lower resolutions and frame rates) than what their systems are capable of. “In addition, streaming video to the cloud could interfere with other Internet-connected applications, such as credit card transaction and point of sale systems,” added Brandon Reich, Senior Director of Surveillance Solutions at Pivot3. However, despite not opting for cloud-based storage, SMBs increasingly use the capability of remotely accessing video that’s stored on-site.