IMS Research Analyst Blog

In recent weeks, the IT industry has been shaken by two security and stability worries. Firstly, Amazon’s cloud service Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) experienced “connectivity errors”. Secondly, Sony announced hackers may have stolen personal details from 77 million PlayStation users and has since announced a potential 25 million further users may have had their personal details stolen. 

With a well-established cloud based service experiencing difficulty and a global technology brand’s IT system hacked; does this raise concerns about the current trend towards cloud-based physical security?

Well, yes and no. Whilst there will be concerns regarding the privacy and security of data, this is nothing new and neither event is likely to impact the traction of cloud-based physical security. An interesting question that is raised is: Should providers of Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) use public third-party cloud storage/cloud infrastructure?

For vendors looking to start-up a cloud-based physical security solution, utilising Amazon or another Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider is an attractive option. Vendors can take advantage of economies of scale and easily increase their usage as new customers subscribe to their service. However, it is interesting to note that all of the top five largest providers of VSaaS solutions do not outsource their cloud infrastructure to a third-party, instead opting to use their own infrastructure.

All things considered, despite recent events rekindling existing concerns regarding the suitability of the cloud for physical security, the trend towards cloud-based physical security is expected to continue unabated.

William Rhodes (Analyst, Video Surveillance and VCA)

William.Rhodes@imsresearch.com

+44(0)1933 40 22 55

Share this Blog