Axis and Salient Partner with HP for VSaas

By: Martha Entwistle

In an effort to bring VSaas to the masses and IP to everyone, IP video provider Axis Communications, VMS provider Salient Systems and storage and server company Hewlett Packard today announced a Video Surveillance as a Service solution.

I spoke to Scott Dunn, Axis’ director of business development for North America, this afternoon about the deal. Salient adapted and integrated its enterprise VMS solution for Axis’ "one click camera connection" to stream video from IP cameras and encoders to remotely housed hosted servers from HP.

Dunn said Salient’s VMS "has dynamic resolution scalling to serve up video and live feed in a thumbnail [view], which allows you to see a lot of feeds very efficiently  -- and with efficient bandwidth usage."

"Ultimately, we want to deliver solutions to the integrator that will drive RMR for them, so -- working with world-class partners [such as Salient and HP], we can deliver a total solution to integrators -- that’s cost effective and can be easily installed," Dunn said. "And they can sell it as a service solution very much like the alarm industry [has been doing with monitoring services] for years," he added.

So what’s the difference between this marketing agreement and the deal announced at ISC West 2011 between Axis and EMC? They’re both aimed at making hosted video a reality for applications small and big, but there are some other differences.

For one, Salient adapted its VMS for this solution. However, "the main difference is that EMC is hosting the video in its own data center," Axis’ Domenic Locapo said. "HP is bringing [the solution] to its biggest hosting partners to do the actual hosting," he added.

How do integrators choose? Axis is providing best-of-breed options. It's a matter of what works best for a particular integrator and application, Dunn said.

Dunn said Axis’ central theme this year is: "IP for everyone -- affordable, quality, IP solutions for every class of user." He said a “cloud deployment allows everyone cost-effectively [to have] benefits of IP including HD, mobility, scalability."

The announcement was made today at an HP partner event in Las Vegas (called HP Discover 2012). Dunn said that in contrast to fears several years ago that IT companies would take business away from physical security integrators, this deal shows that IT and physical security collaborations mean more business for both professions.