Razberi Technologies surveyed more than 100 security systems integrators and enterprise security leaders, discovering that when it comes to video surveillance systems, security professionals are most focused on maintaining quality at the right cost, simplifying management, and improving reliability. 

These findings highlight the challenges of cost effectively capturing high quality video without making risky tradeoffs that can result in lost video. 
 
Given the convergence of physical security on IP networks, the survey respondents also expressed early concerns about cybersecurity threats. Recent denial of service attacks have used networked cameras as an entry point. 
 
“As the number of networked video surveillance cameras increases, so does the strain on IP networks and physical security professionals. It’s difficult to ensure 24/7 operation of cameras and recording as well as harden systems against cyberattacks,” said Tom Galvin, CEO of Razberi. “Many organizations are hauling megapixel video to centralized, general-purpose storage and servers not intended for video surveillance, which is costly and often requires sacrificing quality to save bandwidth.”
 
The survey found the majority of security professionals are planning to install network cameras for video surveillance and security within the next year (85 percent). Their No. 1 focus for network camera installations is reducing technology and network costs (57 percent). Other top considerations are reliability, quality and maintenance: 

• Improving reliability of video for incidents to lower risks of lost video (51 percent)
• Enabling the use of the highest quality megapixel cameras for surveillance with no resolution or frame rate tradeoffs (48 percent). This dovetails with the 66 percent who said they have had to implement a separate network to offload surveillance video from a business IP network due to bandwidth or performance issues.
• Making ongoing management and maintenance easier and more automated (54 percent) 

One-third of respondents said that “addressing cybersecurity concerns” is a top consideration. They identified four top cybersecurity vulnerabilities: 

• failing to update to the latest software or firmware 
• weak passwords 
• need for better multi-departmental cooperation between it and security 
• lack of best practices for routine maintenance 

In terms of maintenance and reliability, 58 percent of survey respondents said their organization receives proactive alerts when there are camera or video recording problems. However, 41 percent said they either do not receive alerts or don’t know if they do.
 
For more information about the survey results, including an infographic, visit www.razberi.net/survey.