The Next Surveillance Decision: Open vs Locked In

The next surveillance decision is not cloud vs on premises. It is open vs locked in.

ONVIF published the Profile V release candidate in July 2026, a draft standard for cloud video: cameras making secure outbound connections to a cloud VMS without port forwarding or VPN, WebRTC live streaming, OAuth 2.0 authorization, and recordings encrypted before they land in cloud storage such as S3 or Azure Blob. It can be combined with the existing ONVIF profiles for hybrid designs.

What we tell owners to put in a specification now

1. Require standards-based interoperability, not a single vendor ecosystem.
2. Ask who holds the recordings and the encryption keys.
3. Confirm the cameras can be reused if the cloud VMS changes.
4. Model uplink bandwidth and outage behavior before you remove local recording.
5. Separate real ONVIF conformance from marketing claims of "ONVIF compatible".
6. Design the hybrid around operations, not around a cloud subscription.
7. Treat Profile V as a release candidate. Finalization is expected around year end, so write it as a direction, not a guarantee.

Moving video to the cloud should not mean giving up control of your cameras, your recordings or your next platform choice.