Page 40 - Security Today, September/October 2023

Making the Case for Cloud Security What to keep in mind when deploying your cloud security and surveillance strategy By Aaron Saks The cloud continues to be a major topic of discus- send all your data to the cloud all the time, then hybrid gives you the best of both worlds. You can mix and match or go either way. sion across the security and surveillance industry. Another of the biggest cloud benefits is flexibility and scalabil- Cloud adoption rates are continuing to increase as many customers move past earlier concerns ity. The cloud is flexible and elastic and scales to your needs and resources. That’s one of the biggest benefits to the cloud: you can about cloud security and reliability and begin to have a cloud-based video system up and running quickly. realize the significant benefits that come with the cloud: efficien- cy, scale, and cost savings. If you are recording 30 days now, but in a few months or sea- sonally you need 60 days, just log in, click a few buttons and you The scope of a cloud deployment can vary from customer to are done. You do not need to go on site and change out hard customer, based on their market, requirements, the focus of their operations and budgets, among many other factors. For some, drives. As more dealers and integrators become familiar and flu- ent with cloud video platforms, they will recommend and offer fully cloud environments work best, for others, on-premise is the it to more of their customers, which will greatly help in keeping way to go. Still, for others, a hybrid approach makes sense. Shutterstock.com/ PeopleImages.com - Yuri A CLOUD VS. ON-PREMISE VS. HYBRID adoption rates on the rise. Cloud video recording will also grow more accepted for use as There are many applications that can dictate when a hybrid ap- sourcing and installing servers to manage the growing demand for video retention. This is attractive to many customers since cloud proach makes sense. For example, in many markets such as can- recording is elastic and only requires a few clicks to extend stor- nabis or banking – there are regulations stating you must have both on-site and off-site back-up storage. Hybrid allows you to age retention. We will see much more blending of on-prem systems with cloud backup or cloud archiving, with more customers em- have full on-site video recording capability combined with a full bracing the idea of choosing, and only paying for the cloud services cloud user interface with all the necessary features and function- ality without tying up network bandwidth. If you don’t need to they need. 40 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023 | SECURITY TODAY CLOUD SECURITY