What Do You Consider An 'Enterprise' Video Surveillance Customer?

JH
John Honovich
Aug 24, 2017
IPVM

People use terms like 'SMB' (for small medium business), run-rate, enterprise, etc.

Curious to see what you consider to be an 'enterprise' video surveillance customer. Poll below:

The poll is based on cameras, which is what I think is the most common simple metric. Surely there are other elements including the complexity of the project.

Any thoughts, please share.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Aug 24, 2017

I feel that Enterprise customers should be classified as either very large/high camera count sites or sites with multiple premises tied under one contiguous system. Some examples:

  1. If the customer had 5 cameras at something like dollar store chain locations throughout the country that were tied into a corporate command center where thousands of cameras might be accessible I would likely classify that as an Enterprise customer... though likely a low end one.
  2. A single retail outlet by itself with 100 cameras would not be an enterprise system.  I have one customer like this and I could never fit them under the Enterprise banner no matter how dense their coverage.
  3. If a single site was a high-rise or a stadium with several hundred cameras I would classify it as enterprise-grade.
  4. A large mall might be entry-level enterprise grade on the camera count alone.
  5. A single elementary school with 100 cameras would not be an enterprise but a district with thousands would be enterprise.
  6. Working on one or two big box stores does not make that an enterprise customer, working on their entire chain does.

I welcome contrary opinions.

(3)
(2)
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Aug 25, 2017

I certainly agree camera count is a factor, but then, so is the requirement for Active Directory, ACS Integration, Payroll Integration, Multiple Time Zones, Multiple Languages and other operational aspects. 

500 cameras at a University, managed by Security and all on a single LAN with 10 users wouldn't be an Enterprise system to me.

50 cameras across 4 continents, Active Directory integration for a couple of hundred possible users with multiple user authority groups, 6 time zones, 10 recording servers with redundant failover certainly would.  An example would be securing data rooms only for a large enterprise.

(3)
(2)
JB
Josh Bylsma
Aug 25, 2017
BLUEmark Technologies

The term "enterprise" indeed leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

I started using the term "federated" when defining larger, multi-site projects. While not widely used, the software development world seems to have the best working definition so far, it define a unification of disparate pieces. 

I typically would not use camera count as the defining factor, as stated above. One could have 25 cameras with AD and SQL integration, redundant servers across different network segments, wireless MtM and video analytics, which would be much more complex than 200 cameras going back to a single NVR with VMS software installed on a cheap Dell server. 

I did a project for DHS, 3 total cameras, at remote sites watching the Canadians (because that is important). I would classify the project as federated because:

- Local storage and network

- Controlled and monitored site and equipment

- Redundant systems

- Satellite back-haul

- Central storage and management

- Advanced alarms (basic video analytics compared to today's technology)

 

(1)
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Aug 25, 2017

I too use the term federated when clustering servers, mostly as a holdover from Milestone.  I agree, that seems to be a better definition of multi-site converged deployments.

New discussion

Ask questions and get answers to your physical security questions from IPVM team members and fellow subscribers.

Newest discussions