The Access Pillar - Video Data When and Where You Need It
Savi
In our introduction, we established that transforming video into a strategic asset hinges on three pillars: Access, Integration, and Analysis. The journey begins with the most fundamental requirement: ensuring your teams can actually access the video data they need, reliably and efficiently, no matter where they are or what department they're in. This includes not just viewing footage but also administering who has permission to do so.
For multi-site enterprises relying on traditional Video Management Systems (VMS), this seemingly simple task is often fraught with frustration. Why? The limitations are baked into the architecture itself.
The Walls Around Your Data: On-Premise Storage & Performance Degradation
Legacy systems typically rely on Network Video Recorders (NVRs) or Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) located at each site. This immediately creates several access barriers:
Finite Storage & Overwriting: NVRs have fixed storage capacity. When they fill up, older footage is overwritten, potentially losing crucial evidence or operational data before its value is realized.3 Expanding storage means costly hardware upgrades, site by site.
Hardware Failure Risk: On-premise hardware is susceptible to failure, theft, or damage (fire, flood), which can result in catastrophic data loss for that location.4 There's often no built-in redundancy.
Performance Degradation Over Time: Critically, accessing video isn't just about Day 1 performance. Like an aging laptop running an old operating system, on-premise servers degrade. Trying to access footage from a year or two ago often results in significant lag, spinning wheels, and system timeouts, especially when teams need answers quickly for investigations. This makes older, yet potentially vital, footage effectively inaccessible when needed most.
The Network Bottleneck: Why Remote Viewing Crawls (Especially for Investigations)
Even if the data exists and the NVR is responsive, getting to it remotely is often painfully slow. Traditional architectures frequently suffer from "hairpinning." When a user tries to view video from a remote site, the data travels from the site NVR, across the corporate network (often via a strained VPN connection), potentially through a central data center, and then finally to the user's device.
While live video might be relayed reasonably well, this inefficient path severely impacts the ability to access recorded historical footage for investigations. It consumes significant bandwidth, leading to:
Laggy, buffering playback when reviewing past events.
Inability to view multiple camera streams simultaneously without performance degradation.
Network strain that impacts other critical business applications.
Frustration and wasted time for teams trying to resolve incidents quickly.
Essentially, the traditional model wasn't designed for the demands of widespread, multi-user remote access, particularly for investigative review, which is common for Savi's typical customer base accessing video remotely.
Breaking Down Barriers: The 100% Cloud Access Advantage
A modern video data platform built on a true cloud architecture – where video is 100% stored offsite in the cloud – fundamentally solves these access challenges. Instead of storing video primarily on-site, data is efficiently and securely streamed to a central cloud platform.
Here's how this transforms access:
Elastic, Resilient, & Performant Storage: Cloud platforms offer virtually limitless storage capacity that scales automatically.6 Data is stored redundantly, minimizing data loss risk. Crucially, accessing year-old footage is just as fast as accessing yesterday's, as the cloud infrastructure doesn't suffer the same localized degradation as on-prem servers.
Direct Cloud Access: Users access video directly from the cloud platform via a standard web browser or mobile app, never tunneling into the site network to view footage. This eliminates hairpinning and avoids impacting local site operations or bandwidth. The result? Smooth, reliable playback from anywhere.
Optimized Data Transfer: Sophisticated systems often use intelligent edge components not for primary storage, but to optimize the video streaming to the cloud, ensuring data integrity without overwhelming site bandwidth. (This reflects the concept of the Savi Edge component – facilitating reliable cloud upload).
Centralized, Granular Permissions: Manage user access centrally using role-based access control (RBAC). Grant specific users access only to the cameras, locations, or features relevant to their job function, across the entire enterprise, with just a few clicks.7 Apply policies consistently everywhere.
The Tangible Benefits:
Instant & Consistent Access: Get the footage you need quickly, whether live or historical, without performance degradation over time.
Smooth Playback: View high-quality single or multiple streams reliably from anywhere.
Zero Site Network Impact: Accessing video doesn't slow down local operations.
Simplified & Secure User Management: Control who sees what from a single interface.
Effortless & Secure Sharing (Clips): Forget exporting large files, dealing with incompatible players, or mailing USB drives. Find an event, clip it, and share it securely via a simple text or email link. Add password protection if needed. Recipients click the link and view instantly in a browser – no plugins required.
Flexible Access Grants (Time Windows/Live): Need to give law enforcement or legal teams access to review hours or days of footage? Grant them temporary, secure access to specific cameras for a defined period via a link, without exporting anything. You can even share specific live feeds securely (e.g., exterior cameras for LE partnerships).8
Data Integrity & Audit Trails: The original video copy remains secure and unaltered in the cloud. With password-protected shares, you maintain a watermark history of who accessed the footage and when.
Real-World Scenarios Unlocked:
An LP investigator, alerted to ORC activity, instantly reviews footage across multiple states from their laptop, identifying suspects and patterns in minutes. They then securely share specific clips with law enforcement via expiring, password-protected links.
A District Manager reviews drive-thru efficiency across five locations simultaneously on their tablet during their commute, experiencing smooth playback for all streams.
Law enforcement requests footage related to an incident in a store's parking lot, unsure of the exact time. Instead of tasking store staff with hours of research and export, the manager grants the detective secure, time-limited access (e.g., 3 days) to only the relevant exterior cameras via a shared link for their own review.
By ensuring video is stored 100% offsite, a true cloud video platform solves the fundamental challenge of access, empowering users across your organization and enabling seamless, secure collaboration. This foundation is critical, because once you can reliably get to your video, the next step is connecting it to your broader business intelligence.
Access solved. Next: explore the integration pillar.
