SIA New Member Profile: Surveill

New Security Industry Association (SIA) member Surveill, a subsidiary of Edge360, offers technologies that allow customers to manage video and security data at scale through intelligence and automation. The company is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia, with sales and support offices around the world, thousands of customers in 190 countries and over 1,800 deployments.

SIA spoke with John Rezzonico, CEO at Surveill, about the company, the security industry and working with SIA.

Tell us the story of your company.

John Rezzonico: Surveill is a subsidiary of Edge360, a systems integrator with more than 10 years of expertise in the deployment and specification of technologies in mission-critical environments. During its work with the federal government, Edge360 developed a containerized video management solution to meet the specific and evolving challenges of the U.S. government and the solution proved to be highly valuable in minimizing vulnerabilities, enhancing security data capture, easing video management and ensuring compliance. The Surveill product line was born out of this initiative, and today Surveill delivers software innovation to the physical security industry by simplifying the deployment and maintenance of video management in any size or type of environment.

What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?

JR: The flagship solution in the Surveill product line is Surveill VMS, which has four different offerings.

Surveill takes a new approach to video management by adding containerization to the operating system. This results in increased reliability, higher system uptime and enhanced data security. Surveill VMS provides organizations the ability to design a unique video infrastructure based on their specific requirements. Designed and optimized specifically for mission-critical video workloads, Surveill solutions deliver an IT-friendly foundation with the performance, scale and resilience required to support today’s demanding safety and operational requirements.

Surveill brings software innovation to the physical security industry by simplifying the deployment and maintenance of video management in any size or type of environment. Whether customers are starting from scratch or have existing video infrastructures, Surveill provides unified, purpose-built video management platforms with software-based intelligence that lowers complexity and overall total cost of ownership. 

What is something we might not know about your company – or something new you are doing in security?

JR: Surveill is the first fully containerized VMS available today, and our unique approach sets us apart from other video platforms available today. What does that mean for our partners and end customers? Many physical security infrastructures are a collection of video management solutions and servers distributed throughout server rooms, data centers and buildings, with all of them being managed separately. Surveill helps eliminate the cost and complexity of deploying, managing and scaling your video system with purpose-built video infrastructure solutions. With our unique infrastructure-as-a-service approach, we centralize and unify the management of your video surveillance ecosystems with software designed to simplify management and administration, ensuring that you are getting the most out of these investments in video surveillance. Our systems are simple to deploy, cybersecure and compatible with IT standards.

What is your company’s vision, and what are your goals for the security industry?

JR: Surveill’s mission is to develop and deliver enterprise-class technology built on making secure, containerized video management the core of any security operations deployment. The software was designed for mission-critical enterprise environments but available to organizations of any size at a very competitive price point. Further, we’re dedicated to building our solutions on an open API. One of the most significant challenges for end users today is integrating their solutions together to work a synchronized environment, and we want to ensure we help them address this challenge.

What do you think are the biggest opportunities in the security industry right now?

JR: The industry is in the middle of an evolution. Practitioners, integrators and product vendors have to embrace the digital world and accept that cybersecurity must be considered a crucial part of any networked deployment. Digital transformation and the Internet of Things have propelled us into the future more rapidly than we could have imagined, and as an industry we need to embrace this opportunity. While the security industry has been known to be a slow adopter of new technologies and processes, the more we embrace positive change and innovation, the more we will be prepared to meet evolving customer needs.

That’s where we come in. When it comes to VMS, containerization is the future. Microservices and containerization are modern software innovations that are standard practice in the IT community. As we look to partner more with our IT counterparts and embrace digital transformation efforts across the enterprise, leveraging technologies designed with IT practices in mind will be more important to consider.

What are your predictions for the security industry in the short and long term?

JR: As we look ahead, we feel openness and ease of integration continue to be significant trends that solution manufacturers must embrace. We’re living in a world in which technologies cannot be siloed.  Security practitioners, now very familiar with the benefits of consumer technologies, require their technology investments to work within their current investments, as opposed to forming a solution around a single product or brand. Security operators see how fast technology becomes outdated, so they are more inclined to invest in solutions that will allow for continued growth, upgrading and easy integration.

What are the biggest challenges facing your company and/or others in the security industry?

JR: The biggest challenge right now has been around the pandemic. Surveill is globally deployed, and travel restrictions have made it difficult to connect with teams at those sites. As a company, we’ve embraced remote meetings and video conferencing. This communication challenge ended up being a positive because it gave us the ability to connect with a greater percentage of our remote team,

In addition, educating the industry on our differentiators is a significant hurdle to overcome but one that we are laser-focused on. Most systems integrators, security leaders and consultants are not familiar with containerized microservices and the inherent benefits the approach provides. Once they become aware, they clearly see that change is necessary.

What do you enjoy most about being at your company – and in the security industry?

JR: Surveill’s team is diverse, agile and dedicated to helping our customers and partners solve business and security complexities. The company operates with a customer-first mindset. Our products are specifically designed to answer specific issues in real-world environments

This is inspiring because Surveill team brings a plethora of diverse expertise and fresh perspectives from multiple angles that are able to take feedback and turn it into action items that make our technologies better.

What does SIA offer that is most important to you/your company? And what do you most hope to get out of your membership with SIA?

JR: The Surveill team is looking to expand its network and connect with other future-focused security professionals who are building now for tomorrow. We also want to grow our partner network and connect with other security professionals that seek to transform the market through technology.

How does your organization engage with SIA? What are your plans for involvement in the next year?

JR: Surveill plans to take part in events, attend training and thought leadership events and even take on speaking opportunities.

The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association.