Executive summary

Businesses worldwide put their efforts in building organizational readiness that will enable them to grow when conditions are right.  When it comes to Video Management Software (VMS), deploying a large
on-premise system usually calls for a lengthy procurement process, costly hardware, and recurring maintenance. XProtect on AWS removes this friction, enabling system integrators and end customers to deploy XProtect in minutes, scale fast with no hardware or location dependencies, and cut down on hardware and maintenance.

XProtect on AWS is a cloud deployment alternative to on-premises video surveillance systems. It utilizes resources and services in the AWS cloud such as compute, storage, and networking, to deliver an elastic solution that can be scaled on demand to fit the business need. Milestone Systems now offers XProtect Bring Your Own License (BYOL) CloudFormation product deployable directly from AWS Marketplace. It can be activated to run any XProtect product, and requires a paid license sold through Milestone’s existing distribution channels.

Single- and multi-site organizations across all AWS regions deploying XProtect on AWS can enjoy a reliable solution with a user-experience identical to XProtect on-premise and full feature-compatibility. Such organizations can now scale easily to meet business demand and reduce risk of service disruptions to enjoy a continuous operation. Reduced initial investment in hardware and AWS predictable cost model further support businesses in optimizing costs and delivering better results.

This paper discusses how XProtect can be deployed on AWS, leveraging AWS global infrastructure and platform services, and the advantages of such a deployment. With the outset in the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) design orchestrated by the XProtect (BYOL) CloudFormation template, the paper further elaborates on suitable architectures for specific customer deployments. As a part of this, the paper discusses possible designs and considerations for the deployment. With the understanding of the architecture and which AWS services that are applied, the paper is concluded with a discussion around performance and operational topics: This includes AWS service costs and opportunities for post deployment optimization.