For example, some large customers reach points where they outgrow their datacenter and the costs to maintain or expand their systems is no longer feasible. Governments are also implementing cloud-first policies where federal organizations must consider cloud-based options before building datacenters on premise.
Similarly, there are also customers who simply find having offsite storage more suited to their application and needs. These are just some of the factors contributing to the increased demand for cloud solutions from larger entities.
4. Bandwidth Constraints Impose Barriers
While there are still some locations where access to high-speed Internet connectivity might be too costly to stream video to the cloud, this is rapidly becoming the exception.
The increasing availability of faster and more affordable Internet connectivity is becoming pervasive and rarely, if ever, will affect a business’ ability to leverage cloud services.
According to the latest State of the Internet report from online traffic routing company Akamai, the United States has an average connection speed of 11.4Mbps, suggesting a 39% year-over-year speed increase and ranking the country 14th in the world in terms of speed connection.
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The report also indicated that 72% connected above 4Mbps, offering a quality connectivity experience. According to Akamai, “Given the extremely positive trends over the last year, it is clear that broadband connectivity is improving in the region, and should continue to benefit going forward from continued investment and adoption.”
This growing high-speed connectivity is directly contributing to lowered costs, thus enabling greater adoption of cloud solutions for the majority.
5. It’s More Lucrative to Build My Own Datacenter
While some integrators might want to purchase servers to build their own datacenters, host a security solution and lease the service to their customers, this option is not al-ways as simple and straightforward as sometimes perceived.
First and foremost, there is significant upfront investment required to build and maintain a private datacenter, both in terms of costs and time.
It is not just a matter of acquiring racks of servers, and ensuring high levels of redundancy and security, but it also entails finding the space to house the servers, cooling the hardware and having the manpower to properly maintain the infrastructure.
Building a private datacenter alters an integrator’s core competencies from recommending and implementing solutions, to managing and maintaining the offering itself, which can impose unrealistic demands on resources and inevitable risk on customers.
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Instead, offering a vendor-hosted cloud-based security solution requires very little technical knowledge, minimal installation time, no maintenance, zero upfront investment and far less risk.
Similarly, looking at simple economies of scale, the ability to compete with tier-one cloud providers is simply not comparable. Growing competition between public datacenter giants owned by Google, Amazon and Microsoft are also driving the costs of cloud services down, making cloud offerings more of a commodity.
For most integrators, total cost of ownership of build-your-own-datacenter is simply not an easier or economically viable strategy with these factors at play.
And Remember: Stay Ahead of Tectonic Market Shift
These opportunities are just the tip of the imminent cloud ice-berg. There is a major shift taking place in the security industry; integrators who want to capitalize need to act now.
While the business model will become one of generating more recurring monthly revenue (RMR), the future profitability outlook for an integrator who becomes a specialist in cloud technologies and develops a credible service-oriented reputation is high.
In best-case scenarios where excellent service keeps customers happy and loyal, long-term revenues have the potential to supersede those of fixed installations.
More importantly, customers need solutions that will help them economically scale. Once a greater level of knowledge on the cloud spreads — and larger, forward-thinking organizations prove that standalone or hybrid cloud models are successful — the cloud will more predominantly become the answer.
This article was adapted from a column on CI sister site SecuritySales.com by Christian Morin, vice president of cloud services for Genetec.
