On August 19, asmag.com held a roundtable discussion-style webinar on cloud technology in security. This note summarizes what the panelists had to say about the topic.
On August 19, asmag.com held a roundtable discussion-style webinar on cloud technology in security. This note summarizes what the panelists had to say about the topic.
More and more, cloud has found its way in many walks of life including security. The technology appeals with various benefits. These include flexibility, scalability and perceived lower cost and better security.
To find out more about what security users think about cloud, asmag.com conducted as
reader survey. In total, 147 of our channel player readers returned valid results. The figures provide valuable insights into what they think of cloud as a security deployment option.
To further interpret the numbers, asmag.com held a webinar on August 19 inviting a panel of experts to share their expertise in cloud. They were Ian Law, Director of Business Development for Asia Pacific at Alarm.com; Joey Lin, Senior Segment Marketing Manager for Embedded Business Unit at Micron Technology; Rishi Lodhia, VP and MD for EMEA at Eagle Eye Networks; and Lee Shelford, Sales Engineering and Services Manager for Asia Pacific at Genetec. Below are some of the findings from the survey and what the experts had to say about them.
Nearly half of respondents deploy cloud for clients
According to our survey, 42 percent of respondents are already doing cloud projects for their clients. Respondents also estimate that the scope of cloud projects will increase by 7 to 10 percent.
The panelists agreed with the growth trend, which they said was especially noticeable during the pandemic. “We've seen a lot of growth over the last 18 months and a lot of that has been derived from the pandemic and the benefit of moving to the cloud during these times,” Shelford said.
According to the panelists, cloud in security will continue to grow due to the value it offers to integrators and end users alike. “We'll see growth to continue. How we look at the future comes down to what's the value proposition that we can provide to customers. It doesn’t matter what community you live in – we all want to see value in what we buy. It's also good for the businesses to have that recurring revenue stream as well,” Law said.
“Not only for integrators or solutions providers, you can bring more value to customers by reducing their cost. Conventional security systems are more like capital expenditure. If you use VSaaS you can transform this type of capital expenditure into operating expenses, which means you don't have to pay a lot of upfront fees. You can pay a service subscription fee, and this will be considered as OPEX, meaning you can save on taxes,” Lin said.
VSaas vs. ACaaS
The survey finds 45 percent of respondents are likely to install
VSaaS in the coming year, versus 38 percent for
ACaaS. This however is not to suggest that ACaaS is less popular than VSaaS. "We see cloud access control accelerating very fast for the last five years,” Lodhia said. “With the nature of cloud, you have so many new opportunities. So what we see is a huge opportunity in terms of interoperability with cloud access control, and also in combination with cloud video you see a much more compelling offer to provide to end users.”
Hybrid cloud – freedom of choice
When asked about key benefits of cloud solutions, 59 percent of our readers cited cloud storage. Yet what if the user has a high camera count? Would storing 100 percent of video footage in the cloud be expensive? In these circumstances, hybrid cloud can be an ideal option.
“The key fact is not the cost of storing data into the cloud – it could be the cost of data transmission. Hybrid model could be a good option for users to consider. You can utilize the capacity of on-prem storage to reduce the network bandwidth consumption, and leverage cloud storage capabilities for redundancy and extended storage retention requirements. For example you can store 30-day data on the edge and 6-month data in the cloud,” Lin said.
According to Shelford, hybrid appeals with the freedom it gives to users. “The biggest thing we’re seeing is the freedom of choice in how much users can do on premise versus how much they do on the cloud. If they've invested in existing hardware they don’t want to throw that investment away, but they want to gradually move to the cloud, so they leverage that hardware approach, using their existing hardware to record still onsite, and either in tandem or after a longer retention period, we can send the video up into the cloud,” he said.
[Related:
Building security trends: Smart cameras, hybrid cloud and open platforms]
Cyber and privacy issues
When asked what obstacles make them hesitant about cloud deployment, 50 percent of respondents cite privacy and security concerns. How to gain customers’ trust, then, becomes important for solutions providers. “There's a lot of steps you can take, for example end-to-end encryption. The biggest challenge is demonstrating to our partners what steps, what certifications and how much energy and effort we put into maintaining the cloud and securing it,” Law said. “There are things like penetration testing, end-to-end testing and third-party testing on the cloud.”
A good business model for integrators?
Finally, the vast majority of respondents expected cloud solutions to be inexpensive; among them, 31 percent wanted to pay US$0-15 per camera per year only. So, is cloud a good business model for integrators? Most panelists said yes, noting that cloud could offer so much more than a recurring monthly revenue.
“SI can really look at value-added service. We're seeing that during the pandemic, the fact that before integrators could always go onsite, but all of a sudden they needed to do everything from a distance. This is where added value comes in,” Lodhia said. “For instance on our platform you can turn the camera tampering on. So just before the customer knew the camera was tampered, the SI could say hey, our system has detected that your camera is tampered. You create added-value services and create much more trusted partnerships.”