Saddest Case Study Ever (Genetec Chinese Buffet)

In fairness to Genetec, this is probably the most likely customer the VSaaS market gets in terms of size. Low camera count, simple functionality and easy to access interface. (Ease of interface is speculation on my part, as I have not seen a live system in action yet, but did see a short demo at ASIS.)

What could be said is even Genetec realizes you're not really going to get mid or large size clients with this offering due to the bandwidth limits VSaaS has to work with.

The costs are higher than the kit from Costco, but even if the end user self installed and maintained, that still costs the business owner money in his/her own time spent on it. (Time is money, too.)

So then the question is if the functionality and ease of maintance and free system updates (most every hosted system with a monthly subscritpion includes updates, though I don't know about Genetec), adds enough value over the COTS kit for enough customers to use it to make it worth Genetec's investment.

As far as I know, when Google Fiber was rolled out, they initially banned users from using it to host a "server". Apparently, this included having your home surveillance system be online. They recently loosened the definition of "server", and you can now let your DVR be exposed to the internet. Coincidentally, when I had Time-Warner Cable (the only option) in NYC, they blocked port 80 for inbound traffic. So I hosted my web server on some other port with no problems (yep, I'm THAT clever).

My thinking is that Google decided that the amount of upstream data sent from these home video systems is quite small - one camera, only on montion etc. but if you run 16 HD cameras 24/7 I am assuming you'd face some headwind with the Google. Especially if this becomes commonplace. I'm also wondering what sort of inbound traffic the Azure backend can handle. I mean YouTube must have one massive pipe coming in, but I am uploading a 2 minute clip maybe once a week. In a restaurant, I am guessing you'll be streaming video almost non-stop (or perhaps I am missing something).

I'll tip my hat any day to Genetec for going ahead with this stuff. Considering their connection with Microsoft I'm sure they have better insights than I do. Unfortunately, my free Azure dev login has expired and I am too cheap to buy a new one.

I see the real power of Statocast coming if/when you can federate the video into Security Center. I think that in the future, integration of VSaaS and local enterprise VMS will be a major deciding factor for large corporations to consider using these VSaaS types of services.

Websites like YouTube have multiple "massive" pipes and load balancing, but that's another story. The question of bandwidth from the client site, though has been one since VSaaS first started and is not endemic to Genetec/Azure alone.

As far as port blocking, a common feature of VSaaS is supposed to be cameras that push or initiate their streams to the destination, precluding in most instances firewall configurations and circumventing any blocks on incoming ports.

But as past partnerships wth Microsoft have shown, it's not a guarntee of success. Will be interesting to see how a relationshop with a behemoth like Microsoft and ity, bity Genetec (how often we forget the relativity of what big is when we talk about name brands in security) works out long term.

VsaaS could work only if the customer would get 1 HD camera for free, install it across the entrance to their apartment, record 15 days in case of a 2 week holiday, and pay 4-5$ per month. For the price of in IP camera one can have a 4 camera analogue system, problem comes when the burglar will steal the DVR as well.