How the cloud helps you centralize multi-site monitoring

Managing the security of multiple independent sites is usually an expensive proposition. Organizations will invest in a security system for each site, and then use operational capital to fund ongoing maintenance and system monitoring costs. Whether there are five, twenty or one hundred sites to secure, hiring onsite staff to monitor and maintain independent systems at each location can be financially draining, or even unrealistic for some companies.

To minimize this cost burden, some organizations might only contract staff to locally monitor each system during peak business hours, and then rely on recorded video and data at night and on weekends. Others forgo active monitoring at remote sites altogether, and simply send staff to retrieve and review recorded video when they have suspicions of foul play at a remote site. While this might seem more affordable, pricey security breaches and inefficiencies during investigations can void any potential savings.

Independent multi-site monitoring can also cause breakdowns in communication between local and headquarters’ security departments. Headquarter security teams might have difficulty ensuring that corporate policies and procedures are being respected by local operators throughout all the independent sites when handling incidents.

De-centralized, independent monitoring of multiple sites is expensive, inefficient, and exposes companies to greater vulnerability. So what’s the solution? It’s called Federation™-as-a-Service (FaaS).

FaaS allows organizations to centralize the monitoring, reporting, and alarm management operations across all remote independent systems. It gives headquarter security teams a unified view of cameras, doors, and other devices, and allows them to receive all alarms from a central location. Organizations can retain independent local monitoring at each site, or simply rely on headquarter teams to monitor all remote sites, 24/7 or only during off-peak hours. With FaaS, centralized multi-site monitoring helps cut monitoring costs, and enhanced communication between remote and local security teams to improve incident handling.

FaaS is also a sure way to reduce servers and maintenance costs that are typically required when connecting sites. How? Because it’s a secure cloud-based solution that avoids the need for additional remote servers, provides automated software updates to main FaaS server, and is available for affordable monthly, or annual, subscription. No big capital expenses are required, nor do you need to tie up your valuable IT resources. FaaS is the best way to implement a more centralized command across your many remote sites, and tighten your multi-site security.

Want to learn more? Watch this short video to get an overview, or read more about how to connect remote sites with Federation-as-a-Service.