Cloud security - Round table discussions

Cloud computing has been around since the turn of the millennium. Over the years, the concept of storing and accessing programs over the Internet (instead of using an on-premises computer system) has grown in almost every realm of business. Some might say the physical security industry has come late to the party, delayed in some instances by (misguided?) concerns about cybersecurity of cloud systems. The bandwidth needed to transfer video to the cloud has also been a challenge. We asked this wee...

How much does a security system cost? We all know that total costs associated with systems are substantially higher than the “price tag.” There are many elements, tangible and intangible, that contribute to the costs of owning and operating a system. Taking a broad view and finding ways to measure these additional costs enables integrators and users to get the most value from a system at the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). However, measuring TCO can be easier said than done. We...

Enterprise customers provide a large, and very lucrative, business opportunity for the physical security market. These customers include big global companies with plenty of revenue to spend and employees and facilities to protect. As a group, enterprise customers also tend to be a demanding lot, requiring systems that are large, scalable, that can operate across a wide geographic area, and that provide top-notch system performance. Enterprise customers set the standards of performance for the en...

The new year presents new opportunities for the physical security marketplace. In many ways, 2018 will undoubtedly see further development of trends we saw in 2017. In fact, some of the trends determining the future of the physical security industry have been in place for many years. However, not every event in 2018 can be foreseen or easily predicted. To be sure, it is sometimes the surprises that keep life interesting! We asked this week Expert Panel Roundtable: What will be the security marke...

The end of the year is a great time to take stock of one’s accomplishments during the year, and to reflect on successes and failures, where we are and where we’re going. 2017 brought a lot of change to the physical security market, but were the changes positive or negative? Our Expert Panelists tend to be a thoughtful and reflective group, so we wanted to get their thoughts and insights at year-end about 2017 in the security market. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable:...

In recent years, information technology (IT) departments at end user companies have often been seen as adversaries of traditional security departments – or, at least, as a thorn in their side. One of the issues is territorial: As physical security products have migrated to use of Internet protocols and the network infrastructure, the IT and security departments have clashed – erm… make that interacted – more and more often. New realities such as cybersecurity have made i...

We have been hearing about smart buildings for more than a decade, but the increasing profile of the Internet of Things (IoT) expands the possibilities for intelligent building systems and makes them even more attainable. Security is often among the “smart” functions of a building, and the capabilities of many physical security systems can contribute in new ways to building intelligence. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the impact of “smart buildings&...

Even the most effective technologies usually require some level of human involvement. What new technologies do, generally speaking, is change the nature of a human’s role. Most jobs in today’s world are vastly different than 50 years ago, in many cases because of the changing role of technology. In the physical security world, what specific impact does technology have on the human element of systems? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Have recent developments in secu...

There’s a huge cloud hanging over the physical security market, but in a good way. Cloud-based systems, whether for video, access control or another category, are on the verge of taking the industry by storm. The benefits of that mythical “cloud” are well-known, or certainly well-touted, in the market. It’s almost as if the word “cloud” has become a buzzword that can mean different things, or at least whatever the customer wants it to mean (as long as they buy...

Big data is a buzzword, and data – presumably of all sizes – is a driving force in the physical security market. As systems become more sophisticated and expand their capabilities, the result is more data; in some cases, a lot more data. But a key question is: What do we do with the data? How do we use it to provide value? How do we interpret it, and transform it into useful information and/or intelligence? We presented the topic of data to our Expert Panel Roundtable and came away w...

A busy trade show abounds with new products and expanded features, colorful signage and blinking video screens, all competing for attention from busy attendees. It’s a microcosm of how the security marketplace – or any market, for that matter – sells its products. But what happens if the reality turns out different to the sales pitch? What happens when product or system performance doesn’t quite live up to the claims? Some would call that hype, and it can lead to disillus...

For many years, cybersecurity was the unmentioned elephant in the room. Possible vulnerability of IP-connected devices to a cyber-attack was seldom, if ever, mentioned, and even the most basic measures to prevent such an attack were not implemented. For the last couple of years, however, the physical security industry has begun talking more about cybersecurity, in some cases with an abounding enthusiasm typical of the newly-converted. Have our discussions sufficiently addressed the long-standing...

Technology is changing at a break-neck pace, and the security marketplace is currently being bombarded by a wealth of new capabilities and innovations. But what will be the impact? Which of the currently-hyped new innovations will have a major impact, and which will fade over time? And even acknowledging the long-term significance of various technologies, what can we expect to be the more immediate effect? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What new security technology is poised...

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) describes standards as guidelines or characteristics for activities or for their results, aimed at achieving the optimum degree of order. They might include product standards, test methods, codes of practice, guideline standards, and management systems standards. In the security marketplace, there are many standards currently used, including those from organisations such as ONVIF, PSIA and ASIS International. Might the value of standardisa...

Once again, ISC West has come and gone. The show continues to please exhibitors and attendees. Reviews are generally glowing and enthusiastic. For all its successes, however, there is a certain repetition from year to year – a lot of the same players, the same technology trends (not to mention the same venue every year, but who doesn’t like Vegas?) But even among the repetition, there is usually at least one element that is surprising. Perhaps it’s the unexpected elements that...

Lower equipment prices (with less margin) are one industry trend leading more integrators to seek out new sources of revenue. With margins shrinking on lucrative, but unpredictable, “project-based” business, integrators are looking for more revenue stability. One solution is recurring monthly revenue (RMR), which is already common in the related field of alarm monitoring. But where does RMR come from? Creating more RMR also requires that integrators change how they do business, from...

The minutes are counting down to one of the biggest security industry trade shows of the 2017 calendar. Expectations are high going into ISC West 2017 in Las Vegas: Last year’s show was very well attended and highlighted lots of new technologies. Looking ahead to this year’s show, we wanted to get the Expert Panel Roundtable’s take on what news will dominate the show. So we asked our panel: What do you expect to be the big news at ISC West 2017?

Rapid changes in technology span both the consumer and the physical security markets. In the consumer market, technology innovation is nowhere more apparent than in the palms of our hands, where we all hold the latest smartphones and mobile devices. Simply put, the unprecedented power and capabilities of today’s smart phones have changed our lives. No wonder they are also having an impact on our business of physical security systems. Although a consumer product, smartphones increasingly pl...

Changes in our industry’s technologies are reflected in the language we use. Over the years, more than one industry trend has been tied to associated buzzwords – for better or worse. As the technologies change, so does the language. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What are the industry’s newest “buzzwords” and what do they reflect about the changing market?

Open systems are great at providing freedom for end user customers. But does the term “open system” mean the same thing throughout the industry? In the bad old days before the introduction and broad acceptance of open systems, security vendors produced proprietary systems that used only their own hardware and software. This locked in a customer to a specific vendor’s product line, and if another vendor offered a better product, the only way to get it was to switch to that vendo...

There are many benefits of security systems, and some may be more obvious than others. Certainly, when choosing security systems to be installed, end users have goals and expectations for the systems in mind. But are there other benefits or opportunities that customers may not have thought of? It’s an interesting question, so we asked our Expert Panel Roundtable: Considering security systems integration, what is the biggest (or most common) missed opportunity?

More cameras today are providing more video than ever, but how much of the video is available when and how it is needed? The question often comes up when law enforcement entities are seeking to access video from private systems to help solve a crime. There are many more private video systems than public systems, but is the video available when needed? And what about privacy: In what situations is it acceptable to share private video for the public good? We took these questions to this week&rsquo...

Here we are already at mid-year, and 2016 has been an eventful one for the security marketplace, dominated by mergers and acquisitions and lots of new products coming to the market. But what’s the outlook for technology in the second half of the year? What technologies will draw the most attention and drive the market into 2017? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What technology buzz will dominate the security industry in the second half of 2016?

How mobile telephones have transformed into “smartphones” is one of the great technology stories of our time. What once was a single-function device now can do almost anything – display video, pay for groceries, monitor our health. The smartphones we carry in our pockets today have more computing power than the “super computers” of yesteryear, and that power has found many uses in a seemingly endless array of “apps.” Some of them are directly related to...

The security market in the United States has been in a collective state of exhilaration since ISC West. The (possibly) unprecedented success of the big trade show has left us all feeling optimistic about the year ahead. Members of our Expert Panel Roundtable are joining the chorus of compliments for the show as they answer this week’s question: How successful was ISC West 2016? Did it meet your expectations?

One of the things all security systems have in common is that they depend on human operators, to one extent or another. But how often is the human factor overlooked in product design? Sometimes, more focus is aimed at increasing the functionality of a system, even at the expense of usability. That’s how we get systems that have more capabilities, although accessing that functionality may be hopelessly complex. Creating effective graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is an ongoing challenge for...

We hear that everything is going to the cloud – or is it? Security end users can be understandably confused by conflicting claims in the market from proponents of cloud-based or server-based systems. A number of major security companies are offering cloud video surveillance solutions apart from the traditional server-based systems. At the end of the day, how do you choose? What factors should be considered? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What factors should a customer...

One of the benefits of newer IP systems is the ability to store video inside the camera or in a nearby digital video recorder (DVR) at the edge of the network. Edge-based storage is unlikely to take the place of centralised storage, but it is complementary and provides some interesting new options related to system design. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the value of edge-based storage and in what specific applications?

Will 2016 see faster adoption of video analytics? Will cyber-security have more impact on physical security? Is the market likely to see greater use of cloud-based products and services? Will technology help to drive greater involvement by everyday citizens in public safety initiatives? Could the market focus shift from selling products to selling solutions?  We asked this week’s SourceSecurity.com Expert Panel to look ahead to 2016, and these were some of the surprises they see in o...

People using computers to surf the Internet is "so 20th century". Today, the big trend involves machines using the Internet to communicate, exchange and analyse data in what has widely become known of as the Internet of Things. Various security devices are among the IoT components, and how devices connect effectively using the Internet – even devices not related to security – will constitute a large part of the future business of security integrators and installers, whether in the re...