Video Management Systems: 5 Minutes With Exacq's Steve Donovan

SourceSecurity.com (SSc): The video market obviously is in the midst of change. Considering things such as intelligence at the edge and moving to the cloud, it can all be confusing for customers; can you tell us how Exacq's VMS, their video management system helps customers to cope with the changing environment?

Steve Donovan (SD): There's been lots of changes over the years and lots of recent changes as well. Exacq came into the market at a very interesting time in the conversion from the analogue IP camera streams and they were well positioned, with a real strong core foundation of IP VMS management system that could go on a hybrid recorder.

You could go on to the new NVR's that were out there in the market - it really gave people a bridge from the old to the new technology, along with some of the fundamentals that Exacq brought on the software side. This gave the customer a real strong base that they didn't have to take out all their old infrastructure, they could adapt by adding IP cameras to analogue cameras, access control systems. The foundation of the Exacq platform has really been key to success and growing with the changes that come across almost every day now, with artificial intelligence, intelligence going to the edge of the cameras, all these things coming in, cloud storage; Exacq has been built on a very strong platform to take on these challenges.

SSC: Customers obviously need a migration path from where they are now, to where they want to be; how does the Exacq VMS help to accomplish that goal?

SD: Exacq's VMS platform is a good solution to go from the analogue camera world to the IP camera world and now to the cloud. You can utilize our same video platform for a professional installation, enterprise installation that will give you a pure clean migration path. If you want to add a couple of cameras, if you want to store cameras locally and in the cloud, you can use the same client interface same VMS platform for those solutions, so you definitely have a clear migration path that's future proof.

SSC: Looking to the future, what's ahead for Exacq's VMS - how will it continue to change, say in the next five years and how will you work to bring existing customers along that evolutionary path?

SD: I'd say one of the biggest focuses for Exacq will be taking on the cloud initiative, that is taking place every day in our environment. Exacq has worked diligently to increase the mobile capabilities with the product, the cyber securities with the product, and the cloud capabilities of the product. There's going to be, there is and there will be lots of evolution within Exacq. The core foundation of Exacq, like I said at the beginning, is that it gives us the ability to provide the video to the customers and then take on the new challenges that arise - I think you're going to see a lot of improvement and functionality come across probably in the future.