A robust surveillance system is undoubtedly an essential component to safeguarding businesses’ securities and assets. According to Markets and Markets’ research on the commercial security system market, the projected market size will reach 342.6 billion by 2026, a significant 50% growth from 2021. The projection is mainly attributed to rising organized crime activities, growing needs and adoption of IP cameras, accelerating implementation of on-premise safety protocol, and the known adaptation of cloud digital transformation due to the COVID-19 impact. Any business is prone to theft if not properly protected, and the fact that there’s a possibility of a business being vandalized or sabotaged should motivate businesses to implement a sophisticated business surveillance system into their IT infrastructure.
Here are some of the most common challenges an organization may face when choosing a surveillance solution:
1. Limited flexibility on camera and device selection
Although not all NVR vendors support exclusively their own branded cameras and devices, in practice, quite a number of NVR vendors only support a limited number of cameras and devices due to business reasons, so it’s quite often for businesses to ultimately settle and compromise on cameras that are not of their initial preferences. It is also complicated and quite costly to replace the existing setup if businesses were to choose a surveillance solution that supports their preferred devices.
2. Insufficient Storage Capacity and Scalability
Traditional NVR vendors offer limited storage capacity and low flexibility to scale when needed. As the world becomes more digitally transformed, technology innovations also propel swiftly. Things like resolutions and qualities of the videos or numbers of the backup configured are putting these traditional NVR vendors into tests when it comes to keeping up with the growth of customers’ data usage. On top of that, the growing needs and adoption of IP cameras and the accelerating implementation of on-premise safety protocol such as compliance of keeping the longer duration of video footages all propel businesses to rethink surveillance strategies and the required storage space. Ultimately, it has become inevitable for NVR vendors to provide greater scalability when it comes to surveillance storage.
3. More Than Expected Overall Cost of Ownership
Users often overlook expenses beyond hardware costs. In reality, a robust surveillance solution may be connected from multi-sites, consisting of several third-party components, and requiring maintenance and support from different vendors. What comes along are the likes of multi-site VMS software subscription fees, third-party hardware integration expenses, or the hurdle of contacting multiple vendors to perform maintenance on different components of the surveillance system.
It has become clear what type of modern surveillance solution a business should consider–device and camera integrability, storage scalability, and overall cost of ownership. Here are the other things to look out for when selecting surveillance systems.
1. Beware of camera vendor lock-in traps
A handful of vendors still stringently regulate the device and camera compatibilities, giving businesses limited options when selecting surveillance system components. To remedy such a challenge, a modern surveillance solution should alleviate these hurdles by supporting multiple camera types including fisheye, PTZ, or multi-lenses, and the likes of ONVIF protocol. On top of this, I/O modules like door controllers, IP speakers, POS systems, intercoms, and IP speakers should also be integrated into the solution ecosystem, giving businesses a variety of options that match specific security needs.
2. Take storage scalability into account
To address the storage needs for the growing surveillance storage and archiving demands, solution storage should be able to be expanded or paired with expansion units, bumping up the storage capacity and allowing businesses to keep longer and larger-sized video recordings with higher frame rates and longer duration. Such flexible scalability combined with advanced management features drastically helps maximize storage efficiency.
3. Consider the licensing model
Advanced features and functionalities for a variety of VMS software typically incurs more costs. But there are solutions out there that only require one-time hardware cost, and all built-in advanced features are made available to users, which drastically decreases the total cost of ownership in the long run.
4. Think large-scale management over
A modern surveillance system should embody the likes of CMS feature that enables businesses to manage multiple recording servers across different locations, dedicated N+M failover mechanism that offers flexible failover options, or deep video analytics features that provide security like object and human recognition, or no idle zone for the premise.
The importance of a surveillance and security solution is often being overlooked by businesses. Businesses that would like to keep up with the modern surveillance demand but don’t have the luxury to go through waves of trial and error with multiple vendors and solutions should consider Synology’s Surveillance Station. It provides centralized control and management features, storage flexibility and device integrability, and most importantly, has a multitude of features that are all made available and free to ensure the learning curve and cost of ownership can be kept to a minimum.
Learn more about Synology’s take on addressing modern surveillance challenges here or sign up for Synology’s upcoming Synology surveillance webinar.
ADVT.