Why it Makes Sense to Adopt Video Surveillance as a Service

"VSaaS market will pick up in 2014 and 2015 given the increasing need for security and surveillance by SMEs"
- Karthikeyan Srinivasan, Consultant Product Manager, EMC India Center of Excellence

Why video surveillance as a service? Any compeling case for it?
Video Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSaaS) is typically targeted at SMB customers, retail chains, etc because they look for solutions that do not require upfront expensive investment of traditional surveillance systems at each location, yet they are interested in having the same features. Current systems at cloud scale do not support multiple cameras, and are expensive to setup and deploy for both service provider and customer. The video surveillance market is expanding and moving away from using analog cameras to digital cameras making it an ideal use case for offering solutions as a service on the cloud, which can manage the IP cameras remotely. Traditional service providers would want to augment their service offerings by providing value added services to their customers. This also opens up new businesses for them.

What are the top five benefits of video surveillance as a service?
Video surveillance-as-a-service provides superior yet economical local cloud surveillance solutions for SMBs and distributed enterprises that enables customers to pay for use of surveillance on a monthly basis without the hassles of setting up their own surveillance infrastructure, man power, etc and the up-front costs. The solution provides secure web access from anywhere and enables recordings at central locations in the event of thefts/damage of recording devices at the remote location. The system also offers ease of upgrade and maintenance which can be performed from central locations. This also meets governance requirements where it can be used for active and archived content in a single, scalable appliance. This solution provides protection to prevent accidental or malicious alteration of your video surveillance data through secure retention and protection.
Apart from this there are many other unique features as well including it's inexpensive compared to other systems. It supports a wide variety of cameras and can be installed as a distributed surveillance system for a company that has multiple remote locations or can be offered as a hosted service by a service provider or telco.

What's the market size of VSaaS in India?
According to 6Wresearch, India Video Surveillance market is expected to reach $952.94 million by 2016, with a CAGR of 32.49% from 2011-2016. In 2011, though analog based surveillance systems have accounted for the majority of the share -67.80% in the overall market, IP based surveillance systems are expected to grow with relatively higher CAGR of 41.78% from 2011-2016. We expect VSaaS market to pick up in 2014 and 15 as the need for security and surveillance increases and more service providers look for newer value added services over their traditional services.

What's the adoption trend of managed video services across SMEs?
There is an ever increasing awareness and need for providing electronic surveillance and security for SMEs as the security and surveillance market is surely regarded as one of the fastest growing segments around the world today. With regards to the SMEs, VSaaS would be beneficial as SMEs would not be in favor of increasing manpower due to budget constraints and prefer to get a one stop solution for their security needs as well as to get a pulse of the office while the boss is away.

What are some of the challenges ahead for VSaaS in India?
Few challenges are to understand the value proposition for end customers as well as service provider partners who will be the primary means of going to market. Ensuring that partners and system integrators also see value in working on VSaaS applications is also another challenge. From a cost perspective, the high costs of bandwidth still exist. We expect this to come down in the future leading to more service providers offering affordable
systems.

What all promises does EMC VSaaS bring up in terms of cost savings, ease of management, etc?
EMC is helping to redefine video surveillance technology by delivering a high performance, low cost all-in-one IP solution targeting small businesses and distributed enterprises. The product not only delivers on the promise of an easy to install and use security appliance but also adds business productivity tools such as loss prevention, compliance and a planning tool that businesses can use to increase revenue, improve operations and enhance profitability. EMC's Open Video Surveillance-as-a-Service supports multi camera views at the edge locations and multiple remote locations can be managed from a central location. The cameras can be managed locally or remotely. Besides, the remote locations can display the surveillance setup on a TV without the use of a computer saving costs. For example, a Pizza outlet could have 4 cameras connected to the system and video displayed on a TV at the outlet. The same cameras can be managed and monitored from a remote central location.