Many NVRs come with proprietary protocols, edge encryption, multifactor authentication, RAID 1, 5 and 10, patented database structures, and specialist technology to ensure that the integrity of video footage. These are all fine-tuned to ensure that surveillance operations deliver stable throughput, and rapid retrieval of footage. This makes NVRs not only inherently cybersecure - because proprietary and patented tech is simply not familiar to bad actors and is difficult to hack - but it means hard drives cannot be read by external devices such as PCs. This gives customers the added reassurance of reliable and stable 24/7 recording at a fraction of the cost of VSaaS.
So, preconfigured and plug-and-play NVRs are still the surest choice, with customers trusting network recorders as well as specialized servers and eSata devices that are also optimized for surveillance operations; those, for example, that can support extremely low bandwidth conditions of below 24kb.
On-prem end-to-end NVR-based solutions also remain the most practical, and affordable way to accommodate both local and centralized video system access and management, and just like VSaaS comes out-of-the box, meaning streamlined cybersecurity during plug-and-play implementation even for multi-site setups with federated architectures.
The bottom line is that for customers the most compelling arguments are still around performance and budgets. We’ll explore those performance issues next month – but first let’s look at the costs, including hidden ones.
There are significant lifecycle disadvantages with VSaaS.
Firstly, unlike the SaaS models found in the IT world, most VSaaS come with expensive upfront camera costs, installation, and commissioning fees, and multiple annual license fees from one or two years through to ten. So, even though customers are not making the upfront capex savings associated with SaaS, they still get locked into lengthy contracts.
Over time these costs mount, as businesses expand, add more cameras, open more sites, or adopt additional analytics functions.
In addition, few proprietary VSaaS vendors enable a wide choice of integration options with third-party security tech or widely used databases. And the APIs some do offer, usually with complimentary cloud vendors, means further exponential increases in ongoing license fees.
However, perhaps the biggest drawback to VSaaS adoption (and one that can be carefully hidden in contracts) is that if licenses aren’t paid customers’ cameras become redundant. Unless users wait for contracts to end and implement a planned switch over, they will be left without any surveillance capability, exposing gaps in security and safety, and putting them at risk of void insurances and non-compliance penalties. And the bigger the system, the bigger the decommissioning challenge.
Another major barrier to VSaaS adoption is that most vendors can only offer edge storage up to 30-days due to processing power limitations. This can give small customers some benefits - cost-effective edge storage, flexible cloud architecture, and no need for a separate VLAN - but for most applications 30-days retention is too restrictive.
Government and industry sectors worldwide continue to mandate longer video retention periods, and that’s why we’re not seeing a headlong rush to VSaaS for regulated applications, including the fast-growth sectors such as cannabis retail and production, critical national infrastructure, pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, local and federal government, and banking. The same is true for retail and hospitality settings where smaller but frequent fraudulent card transactions can often take time to be flagged, meaning banks will request transactional footage is retained for up to 90 days.
As a workaround, some VSaaS vendors give customers the option of using their own cloud or preferred cloud partner, but this almost defeats the unique selling point of edge storage. Adding cloud storage means costs begin to spiral. In addition, cloud storage can get complicated in some sectors if VSasS vendors offer Amazon Web Services (AWS), which for retailers is viewed as a competitor. And cloud storage can throw up complexity for corporate enterprises that need to comply with varying international standard or local regulations about where data centers are located.
So, while established surveillance players cannot ignore the cloud, and inevitably we’ll see a mix and match approach, on-prem and NVR-based solutions continue to be the most popular and most affordable choice – not least because they deliver a significantly lower total cost of ownership.
* This article was authored by Jeff Montoya, Eastern Regional Sales Director, IDIS America and appeared first on the IDIS company blog.
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