For years, the security industry has relied on a ‘reactive’ model for maintenance on surveillance systems. Older, analog systems, working in concert with security officers, guard dogs, and physical barriers, required less maintenance and management than today’s high-technology IP-based systems. When they failed, people knew because there was no image on a screen. Security systems today are more capable, more powerful, more “virtual”, and more secure—but also more complex, requiring more detailed inspection to ensure their consistent function. Seeing an image on a screen does not mean with IP-based surveillance that video is recording as it should – that’s why so many security teams have faced the “missing video” problem when they go to retrieve video evidence and it is not there. Because there are more things that can go wrong, and go wrong “silently” without someone knowing a failure has happened, most physical security teams are in the rut of reactive maintenance. No one knows when the failure happened. To figure out root cause, a technician is sent to inspect the system. Then fixes are tried, sometimes iteratively, until it looks like it’s working again.
