Arcules enters EMEA market to support security teams “streamline operations via unified cloud platform”

Michael Hygild, Director of Sales, EMEA, Arcules

With a cloud solution designed to streamline security operations via a single, unified platform, Arcules is now looking to support customers in the EMEA region. IFSEC Global speaks to Michael Hygild, Director of Sales, EMEA, to find out more about what the company offers, as well as its latest edge-based cloud solution.

Hi Michael, let’s start with the basics. For those unaware in EMEA, can you tell us a little bit more about Arcules?

To put it simply, Arcules takes an organisation’s IP cameras and access control devices and allows security leaders to control their security operations from a single, unified and intuitive platform, as well as gather actionable insights from video analytics to help enable better decision-making.

And it’s all done via the cloud, meaning users can access their system from anywhere, on any device and at any time. The best part is, Arcules is built on an open platform model, which means organisations can use any of their existing cameras with the system; they aren’t locked into a specific brand, making it a more scalable and flexible solution for growing businesses.

What solutions does Arcules bring to security teams/managers?

The Arcules Unified Cloud Security Platform allows security teams and managers to bring all of their video surveillance into a single cloud-based, intuitive platform so they can gain alerts and access their video in real-time – all via the cloud. The platform also allows these leaders to apply analytics to their incoming video data to identify potential risk, streamline operations or recognise potential threats to the organisation.

Additionally, within the platform, there are two ways that video data can be stored, which makes it ideal for any number of facilities: through a “pure” cloud option where video data is constantly pushed to the cloud and stored (and accessed at any time) or via an edge device, which limits the amount of bandwidth needed. In the Edge Cloud solution, users can store video locally while still gaining the ability to control that data via a cloud-based platform at a much lower bandwidth, which can be a problem in more remote locations.

In early 2020, Arcules launched a full integration with the Milestone-XProtect, which allows users to manage their central headquarter locations with a market-leading on-premise video management system (VMS) while being able to manage branches and decentralised locations in the cloud. The integration is a great way to get more from your Milestone technology, while expanding options for customers. This hybrid cloud gives the option to utilise the power of the cloud with on-premise technology in “one complete solution.”

What is the company looking towards in the future?

Arcules will continue to expand internationally beyond the United States and EMEA, bringing a scalable, flexible solution to a variety of vertical markets. The addition of the recent Edge Cloud solution opens business up even further, giving customers the flexibility they need to harness the power of the cloud while remaining within bandwidth limitations. These customers can also benefit from the ability to “mix and match” their cloud-based options. Arcules is looking at ways to provide organisations with a pathway to fully adopt cloud, whether it’s with a pure or hybrid option.

What are the benefits of cloud solutions over on-premise options?

Cloud-based solutions have a number of benefits that today’s enterprise organisations need to solve their biggest challenges. The Arcules Unified Cloud Security Platform is always up-to-date, easy to manage, easy to deploy, cybersecure and easy to scale. Taken together, using the Arcules platform allows our customers to focus on their business without having to worry about their video not being available when and where they need it.

With a traditional on-premise server, maintenance must be done on-site or via remote desktop, which can burden an already overloaded IT or security department. The ability to remotely monitor and provide oversight for multiple locations from a single, unified platform allows numerous benefits for ensuring an incident can be addressed immediately. Perhaps even more beneficial is the ability to scale as needed — as cameras or access control devices are needed — without having to continually invest in on-premise servers and storage.

What benefits does your new Edge Cloud solution bring to potential customers?

We can all relate to the role our bandwidth plays on our ability to work. Video calls and streaming video can significantly impact network performance and responsiveness. But it’s not only work-from-home employees that face this issue. Businesses also face it when it comes to their day-to-day organisational functions and, maybe even more importantly, their security systems.

The more we heard about this challenge, the more we wanted to help address it. Some customers were in remote locations where network speeds were severely limited. Others needed to save bandwidth for daily business operations. Some had high camera counts resulting in an enormous amount of video data. And still others needed to store video data locally to meet basic regulatory oversight requirements in certain markets.

For example, a retailer or office may continuously record during business hours. If they have 15 cameras at their location, that means they are using roughly 30 Mbps to stream to the cloud. With the Edge Cloud solution, Arcules can reduce this down to an average of 10 Kbps per camera while recording during business hours, significantly saving bandwidth capability for more business-related needs.

Arcules has customers with thousands of cameras on site and during normal operations, they use a fair amount of bandwidth to record and save this video data. But if an incident occurs, where a lot of activity happens all at once, it can completely overwhelm the outbound bandwidth of these companies and it can interfere with the normal day-to-day operations. The recently released Edge Cloud solution helps these customers offset that so we can record en masse tons of data and not have to move it out to the cloud and affect their day-to-day business. Arcules wants to provide the best solution based on their bandwidth needs, and this potentially means being able to change where video is stored depending on the location.

Find out more about Arcules.

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