Most of us have been there.  The sinking feeling of disgust and dread.  The shock and horror of the loss.  The frantic searching filled with hopelessness.  In an instant; precious memories and important phone numbers; our lifeline to the world, gone.  Whether by the accidental deletion, damage, or catastrophic failure; that moment when all the pictures and contact information is lost from a mobile device.  

Then the cloud solved that concern.  Automatically backing up pictures, videos, contact information to the cloud seamlessly to the user.  Background processes running to ensure all the conveniences, comforts, and security of the valuable data.  Mobile data has been running versions of the cloud since before 2008.

This begs to have the question answered, why has the security industry as a whole not adopted the cloud; and more specifically why have video surveillance solutions not adopted the cloud?  Traditionally the security industry has relied upon on-premise solutions with hardware and software redundancies and safeguards on-premise.  Only a few early adopters have a cloud offering; and while this may be changing, that change takes time.  Even then, what is the cloud specifically when talking about cloud video?  Video Surveillance as a Service or VSaaS is a term that has been coined across the industry, but even that term is misleading. 

VSaaS solutions are typically broken into three primary categories; Cloud Managed, Cloud Recording, or Hybrid. 

Cloud Managed

Cloud managed VSaaS solutions are primarily categorized as active monitoring solutions where the surveillance video is recorded at the edge; on a SD card, an internal SSD to the camera, or an edge appliance.  Active monitoring solutions require a person watching screens in real-time.  The management solution sends active alerts, alarms, or anomalies to the cloud for backup.  The alarm videos are quickly retrieved, but for additional context and recorded information for building an evidence case, this requires the system to reach back to the edge device(s) and pull video. 

Cloud managed solutions leave the customer vulnerable to physical damage that can cause the loss of valuable data as well as potentially unsecured data vulnerable to social engineering attacks.  Just like the mobile phone being damaged, cloud managed only sends to the cloud what is programmed, leaving the chance that valuable data can be destroyed. 

Cloud Recording

Cloud Recording (CR) or sometimes referred to as cloud-hosted is the VSaaS solution that allows edge sensors to record directly to the cloud via a network connection. Cloud recorded video is a simple data stream sent to the cloud where it is continuously stored, for the set number of days. No or very limited amount of hardware onsite to purchase and maintain. The entire video, not just known alarms, is easily accessible by all who need access to it, when they need access to it. Cloud recording is built to manage one site or many.

Cybersecurity and Data Resiliency

Cloud recording is built on the pillars of cybersecurity and data resiliency.  Industries that require their data to be secure, where social engineering and direct physical breach cannot gain access to their data look to cloud recording to ensure their data is encrypted and readily available.  Unlike the traditional on-premise solutions or even cloud managed solutions, which can easily suffer the same fate and the same frustrations that occurred with mobile devices not connected to the cloud, cloud recording is always online; recording everything, not just motion activated alarms.  This solution offers a data resilient solution to ensure maximum uptime. 

Many industries, such as cannabis and banking to name a couple, suffer from government regulations and insurance oversight that can create massive fines or the physical shutdown of a building for security system downtime.  In short, they have a regulatory requirement for resiliency, that cloud managed solutions simply cannot provide.  Cloud recording offers background processes quietly sending video securely to the cloud, offering a seamless user experience with all of the advantages expected from cloud hosted services. 

Hybrid Cloud Recording

Cloud managed VSaaS solutions are sold with edge components, hefty storage solutions either in the camera or large on-premise appliances.  Many of the cloud managed providers have a limited amount of cloud they can sell. 

Contrasted, Cloud recording solutions have significant amount of cloud storage available, which makes the cost even less per terabyte or petabyte.  Additionally, cloud recording solutions have the ability leverage a hybrid cloud.  The hybrid cloud is a cloud recording option where both cloud storage and Local Storage are combined to create an Enhanced recording option, giving the end-user the best of both VSaaS worlds.  The hybrid cloud allows the end-user to optimize costs in the cloud while protecting against downtime. 

The hybrid cloud allows for a minimal amount of recording to occur onsite, meeting regulatory and insurance requirements, at a minimal cost to the company.  Branch offices and smaller sites that may be susceptible to crime or weather may look to hybrid solutions where keeping financial resources tied up in on-premise solutions may not be the best option. 

Hybrid cloud solutions can offer a best of both worlds; with the active monitoring and cloud management of multiple sites, while offering cybersecurity  and data resiliency.  Hybrid solutions also provide a cost-effective budget option with a mixture of hardware and software solutions. 

What can Rasilient help?

Rasilient Systems was an early adopter of cloud recording, leading other cloud recording solution with our enhanced recording surveillance platform.  Rasilient Systems is a Video Management System (VMS) or VSaaS-agnostic recording solution in the cloud.  This allows our customers to select the VMS of their choice, and to receive best-in-class recording with our patented No-Frame-Drop technology, ensuring all frames of all video recorded is available when it is needed.  Not only is the cloud leveraged for recording, but by being an enhanced recording-focused surveillance platform, all storage management and scalability management is handled in the cloud.  This enables our customers, no matter if they have one site or many to manage their systems remotely. 

The Rasilient NFDHybrid Clooud is a subscription based enhanced recording solution that allows users to implement in the OPEX model. VMS-agnostic cloud platform enables users to record their video surveillance on-site using any VMS and upload their recorded and encrypted video to an object-based, highly secure public cloud via our patent-pending NFDLink technology and PrivateLok cybersecurity encryption. When recording with our patented No-Frame-Dropped technology to the cloud, our technology allows us to record at a cost savings of one fifth the cost of comparable cloud hosted solutions.