Integrated Systems

Cloud CCTV migration

by Mark Rowe

England is poised to become an early and rapid adopter of Cloud CCTV, says the installation firm NW Security in its 36 page report, ‘Preparing for the Next Generation of CCTV Systems’. The company researched medium and large sized firms running CCTV systems.

The report looks at why 58 per cent of all firms captured in its survey of CCTV system users, are planning to migrate their CCTV systems into the cloud by September. Among private sector more than two thirds (71 per cent) of CCTV users were actively considering migrating their video systems into the cloud.

The firm suggests a network video ‘tipping point’. A reason for the appetite for ‘Cloud CCTV’ migration, the report finds, is that although the UK was late to moving to network video from traditional analogue-based CCTV because of its widespread adoption of CCTV more than 25 years ago, the CCTV to network video tipping point has finally been breached across all sectors. A majority, 61 per cent of England-based medium and large businesses now have network video monitoring systems rather than traditional analogue-based CCTV systems, the study found.

The report also plots the increase in demand for Cloud CCTV as part of a wider acceleration of cloud migration plans in response to the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has created a rapid increase in demand for access to corporate IT applications and Management Information systems remotely, as many have spent most of our working week operating away from the traditional workplace.

Cloud CCTV demand fits with wider cloud migration plans which have been accelerated in response to covid, the report suggests. Some 42 per cent of all medium and large-sized businesses admitted that their ‘cloud migration plans are being accelerated in 2020/21 because of COVID-19’. A further 34 per cent increased budgets to put more IT services and applications into the cloud following the outbreak of the pandemic.

Three quarters (76 per cent) of all firms which completed NW Security’s online survey confirmed that they had accelerated cloud migration plans as a result of the pandemic. A third (33 per cent) of all businesses’ CCTV systems in the study were still run by in-house Security or Facilities Management departments.

However, now that more CCTV systems are networked than not, and Cloud CCTV migration is being actively considered by over half of organisations this year, NW Security believes IT departments will end up in charge of much more than the quarter (27 per cent) of video monitoring systems within the next couple of years.

Frank Crouwel, Managing Director of NW Security, pictured, said in the report: “Many IT managers are being forced to take a deeper interest (in their organisations’ CCTV systems) now that the technology and security installer partner capability is available to upgrade and improve CCTV systems – potentially moving them up into the cloud and exploring AI-driven video analytics capabilities which will come as standard in the next generation of CCTV systems.”

Only 10 per cent of systems are supported by an external CCTV/network video specialist installer, the study found. Yet with so much new technology coming in so quickly; and the pressure to migrate video monitoring into the cloud growing, deeper partnerships with IT networking, cloud migration and professional security expertise are likely to gain ground, the report suggests.

Frank Crouwel added: “We are seeing more businesses looking for help from expert partners for improvement and optimisation of CCTV systems to ensure they are getting optimal value from their existing systems.”

His company believes that the CCTV market is undergoing fundamental change and plans to investigate the implications of that change in a second study that it will run later this year. A copy of the report is available to download on the NW Security website.

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