Page 14 - Security Today, November/December 2022

Key Tech Trends How modern video analytics make an impact on the industry By Scott Dunn Video analytics is in the midst of a revolution. For decades, the video surveillance goal was primarily to record video for later review in the event of a security-related incident. True, there might be a security guard keeping an eye on a handful of wall monitors to look for signs of suspicious activity, but by-and-large the technology was reactive. Of course, that has all changed in recent years, and the advancement of vid- eo analytics has made security technology more proactive, alert- ing on incidents in real time and allowing security personnel to respond quickly and effectively. That technology continues to evolve and improve. Those improvements have come in the form of better camera (image) quality, more powerful computing at the edge, greater cloud inte- gration and expanded use cases that go beyond security—all of which has played an important role in changing the way today’s organizations use video analytics. As we move into 2023, those changes are worth keeping an eye on—both because of how they have already affected the industry, and how they promise to af- fect change it in the future. As the analytics revolution continues, a number of key analytics trends that will change the way busi- nesses operate in ways that go far beyond security. Trend 1. Hybrid Deployments Will Continue to Grow The advent of cloud computing was a significant development for analytics, allowing organizations to take care of vast amounts of computing power beyond their on-site capabilities. For video an- alytics, cloud was somewhat limited in its application—after all, sending an entire video feed to the cloud for analysis would re- 14 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 | SECURITY TODAY COVER STORY