Stop hosting CCTV servers in a back office.
Your video management infrastructure deserves a proper home — redundant power, dedicated bandwidth, world-class cooling, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
For security companies running offsite monitoring, and commercial businesses tired of buffering sites, overheating server rooms, surprise downtime, and the cost of running infrastructure that isn't their core business.
What happens when the server walks out the door?
Most security companies and commercial businesses host their VMS on a couple of servers in a back office, a stockroom, or a converted broom cupboard. It works — until it doesn't. And when it doesn't, the cost is never just the hardware.
Server Theft
Burglars increasingly target the server room first — wipe the evidence, then steal the assets. For a security company, the irony is fatal: the very hardware monitoring your client's site has just walked out of your building.
Power & Cooling Failure
Load-shedding, faulty UPS, blocked extraction fan, aircon compressor failure on a Saturday afternoon. Servers cook themselves. Drives fail. Footage is corrupted. By Monday, you're explaining to clients why their feed is gone.
Bandwidth Bottlenecking
Consumer-grade fibre is sold on a contention ratio — 1:20, 1:50, sometimes 1:100. When the neighbours stream Netflix, your CCTV feeds buffer. When your own staff video-call, your monitoring pixelates.
The Skills Gap
Configuring a VMS server, patching it, monitoring it, backing it up, replacing failed drives — that's a full-time IT engineer's job. Most security companies don't have one. Most commercial businesses shouldn't have to.
Backup & Recovery
"We back up to a USB drive in the same building" is not a backup strategy. It's a fire-loss waiting to be discovered. A serious VMS deployment needs offsite, real-time, encrypted backups — engineered, not improvised.
Compliance Exposure
POPIA requires reasonable security safeguards on personal data, including CCTV footage. A back-office server with weak access control and no audit log is exposure waiting to be enforced. The Information Regulator is paying attention.
A proper home for your infrastructure.
Engineered, monitored, redundant. The Swiss Systems Data Centre is built specifically for video management workloads — where every kilowatt of power is backed up, every gigabit of bandwidth is dedicated, and every cabinet is cooled to specification. This is what proper infrastructure looks like.
Redundant Power
100 kVA inverter systems backed by generator infrastructure. Load-shedding, grid failures, transformer faults — your servers don't notice.
- 100 kVA inverter capacity
- Backup generator infrastructure
- UPS for instantaneous handover
- Tested failover procedures
Tiered Fibre Routes
Multiple 10 Gbps redundant fibre paths with automatic failover. If one route goes down, the next one's already carrying the traffic — no manual intervention.
- 10 Gbps tiered redundant fibre
- Automatic failover routing
- Dedicated 1:1 contention ratios
- Direct throughput, no bottleneck
World-Class Cooling
Properly engineered cooling with cabinet extraction ventilation. Server lifespan is a function of temperature — we keep ours optimal so yours last longer.
- Engineered cooling architecture
- Cabinet extraction ventilation fans
- Thermal monitoring per rack
- Optimised for server lifespan
Uptime SLA
A contractual 99.9% uptime guarantee. Backed by real engineering — not a marketing line. Backed by 20,000+ cameras already running through this infrastructure today.
- 99.9% uptime contractual SLA
- Real-time monitoring
- Proactive incident response
- Tested at production scale
20,000+
Cameras hosted liveDirect throughput. No node bottlenecks. No bandwidth ceiling. This is what we already do, every day, for our customers.
Why your sites are buffering.
Consumer-grade fibre is sold on shared contention. Twenty homes, fifty homes, sometimes a hundred — all sharing the same upstream pipe. When the neighbours start streaming, your CCTV feeds slow down. Swiss Systems sells you bandwidth you actually own — 1:1, contention-free, with the throughput your video needs.
Contention ratios kill video
Your VMS is competing for upstream bandwidth with every other tenant on the line. During peak hours — exactly when you need surveillance most — your feeds throttle. Frames drop. Streams stall. Evidence becomes unwatchable.
1:1 contention by design
Every customer gets dedicated upstream — what you pay for is what you get, all the time, regardless of what anyone else is doing. With 10 Gbps tiered redundancy, even peak production loads don't touch the ceiling.
A typical 32-camera HD site at 4 Mbps per stream is 128 Mbps of constant upstream load. On consumer fibre with 1:50 contention, your effective bandwidth at peak is a fraction of advertised. On Swiss Systems, it's 128 Mbps of guaranteed throughput — and we're nowhere near our 10 Gbps ceiling.
The platforms you trust, hosted properly.
We don't lock you into a single VMS. Whatever the camera estate, whatever the platform you've already standardised on, we host it — physical servers and software versions, sized to the deployment, monitored 24/7. Your platform choice. Our infrastructure. One bill.
The infrastructure is the product. The VMS is your choice. We engineer the home. You bring the platform that fits your operation — and we'll size, host, monitor and back it up like it was our own.
— The Swiss Systems hosting promiseDahua DSS
Both physical server deployments and software versions hosted in our data centre. Full Dahua DSS Pro and Express support, configured per site, sized to camera count, monitored against load.
HikCentral
HikCentral Professional hosted on dedicated infrastructure, sized for the camera estate. Full feature parity with on-prem deployments — without the on-prem headache.
Provision-ISR
Provision-ISR control deployments hosted on our infrastructure, with full management console access from anywhere. Right-sized for SMB security operations.
Other Platforms
Running something different? Milestone, Genetec, ExacqVision, Avigilon, NetVR, custom NVR software — we'll assess fit, scope the deployment, and host it properly. The infrastructure works for any VMS.
Two audiences, one solution.
Whether you're a security company offering offsite monitoring as a service, or a commercial business running CCTV across multiple sites — the problem is the same: infrastructure isn't your core business. Let it be ours.
For Security Companies
Offer offsite monitoring at proper enterprise grade — without the capex, the IT team, or the risk.
- Add offsite monitoring as a revenue stream without buying servers, leasing data centre space, or hiring senior IT
- Eliminate the theft risk of having client footage on servers in your own building
- Scale your camera estate across clients without bandwidth or compute hitting a ceiling
- POPIA-aligned hosting means client data is properly secured — defensible to your customers
- Predictable per-camera pricing that you can mark up and pass through to your end clients
- Sub-contract the infrastructure while keeping the customer relationship and the recurring revenue
For Commercial Businesses
Stop running a half-built data centre out of your back office. Run your business instead.
- Retail, logistics, manufacturing, mining, body corporates — wherever there are sites with cameras, there's a hosting case
- No server room to maintain. No aircon to fail. No backup generator to forget to test. We do the boring infrastructure work.
- Multi-site visibility from one console — every branch, every depot, every facility, on one VMS
- Disaster recovery built in — if your site burns down, your footage is already safe in our data centre
- POPIA compliance handled at the infrastructure layer — your IT team isn't trying to interpret the Act on a Friday
- One supplier, one bill, one SLA — instead of managing servers, internet provider, generator service, and aircon contractor separately
Sized to you, not the other way around.
Most data centres want enterprise-only deals. Small operators get told to "come back when you've grown." Swiss Systems is different — we host 10-camera deployments alongside 2,000-camera estates on the same infrastructure, properly sized to each customer.
A 10-camera body corporate gets the same infrastructure quality as a 2,000-camera mining operation. Different scale, same engineering standard. That's what centric service means.
— The Swiss Systems service promiseStarter
For small security operations and SMB sites
Single-branch businesses, smaller security firms entering offsite monitoring, body corporates, retail SMB
- Up to 50 cameras
- Hosted VMS (your choice)
- Dedicated bandwidth allocation
- Real-time backups
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Standard support
Growth
For multi-site operators and growing security companies
Regional security companies, multi-branch retail, distribution networks, mid-market commercial
- Up to 500 cameras
- Hosted VMS with hot standby
- Higher dedicated bandwidth tier
- Real-time backups + retention
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Priority support
- Quarterly capacity reviews
Enterprise
For national operators and enterprise estates
National security companies, retail chains, mining, logistics operators, property estates
- 500+ cameras (no upper cap)
- Dedicated infrastructure tier
- Custom bandwidth allocation
- Custom backup & retention policy
- 99.9% uptime SLA + bespoke OLA
- Named account engineer
- Quarterly business reviews
Defendable on the day it gets audited.
Your CCTV footage is personal data under POPIA. Your client's footage is sensitive. Both are subject to access controls, encryption requirements, audit trails, and incident notification obligations. The Swiss Systems Data Centre is engineered so the compliance side of the conversation isn't a scramble — it's a checklist already ticked.
Physical Security
Restricted access facility. Biometric entry to server rooms. CCTV monitored on-site (yes, we eat our own cooking). Tamper-evident cabinet locks. Visitor logs and escorted access.
Network Security
Segmented networks per customer. Encrypted in-transit traffic. Firewall enforcement at the perimeter. DDoS mitigation. No shared subnets between customer environments.
Access Control
Role-based access to your VMS environment. Audit log captures every login, every action, every configuration change. Your administrator sees only your data — never anyone else's.
POPIA Aligned
Data residency in South Africa. Lawful processing terms in our service agreement. Breach notification protocols. Reasonable security safeguards documented and implemented.
Backup & Recovery
Real-time backups to dedicated storage systems. Remote-site backup options (assessment-dependent per customer). Defined recovery point objectives. Tested restore procedures.
Operational Audit
Every infrastructure event logged. Every configuration change traceable. Quarterly access reviews. Annual external infrastructure assessment. Documentation ready for client audits.
When the Information Regulator asks where your CCTV footage is hosted, "in a server in our office" is not an answer that ends the conversation. "In a Tier-3-equivalent South African data centre with documented controls" is.
One number. No surprises.
Most "hosted" deals look cheap on the front page and expensive on the invoice. Swiss Systems pricing is per-camera, per-month, fully inclusive. Power, bandwidth, cooling, backups, support, monitoring, and the SLA — all in. No add-ons. No surprises.
| What you get | Swiss Systems | Self-Hosted / Other |
|---|---|---|
| Server hardware (CPU, RAM, storage) | ✓ Included | Capex R150K+ |
| Redundant power (UPS + generator) | ✓ Included | Capex + service |
| Cooling and environmental controls | ✓ Included | Capex + service |
| Dedicated 1:1 bandwidth | ✓ Included | Variable, often shared |
| VMS software licence (DSS / HikCentral / Provision) | ✓ Included | Separate licence |
| Real-time backups to dedicated storage | ✓ Included | Often optional add-on |
| 24/7 infrastructure monitoring | ✓ Included | In-house staff cost |
| 99.9% uptime SLA | ✓ Contractual | Best-effort, no SLA |
| Patching, updates, security hardening | ✓ Included | IT staff time |
| Hardware replacement (failed drives, components) | ✓ Included | Variable cost |
| POPIA-aligned controls and documentation | ✓ Included | Self-managed |
| Theft, fire and disaster recovery posture | ✓ Included | Insurance only |
The real comparison
Per-camera, per-month, all in. Compare us to anyone — but only if they're quoting on the same basis.
From your back office to ours.
Moving infrastructure feels scary. Done badly, it is. Done properly, it's a series of small, scheduled, reversible steps — with parallel running so your existing system stays live until the new one's proven. Most migrations land within 2-4 weeks from kick-off.
Your VMS choice
Dahua DSS, HikCentral, Provision, or whatever you're already running.
Your camera estate
No hardware change at site. Cameras keep streaming, just to a properly-engineered destination.
Your client relationships
For security companies: you stay the customer's contact, the system improves, the bill stays predictable.
Assessment
We assess your current camera estate, VMS platform, bandwidth profile, retention requirements, and any compliance constraints. Outcome: a written sizing document, not a guess.
Provisioning
We provision your dedicated environment in the data centre — server resources, storage, bandwidth allocation, VMS installation, backup configuration. Tested before you see it.
Parallel Run
Cameras stream to both your existing VMS and our hosted environment. Side-by-side comparison. Your team confirms feed quality, dashboard access, and reporting — before any cutover.
Cutover
Scheduled cutover with rollback path defined. Your old VMS stays available read-only for 30 days. After 30 days of clean operation, the old infrastructure can be decommissioned.
Not the cheapest. The most defensible.
If you want the cheapest hosting, you can find it. We're not chasing that. We're chasing the customers who've been burned before — by buffering streams, by overheated servers, by the data centre that "lost" three days of footage, by the silent failure that no-one caught until a client phoned.
Production-Tested at Scale
20,000+ cameras streaming through our infrastructure right now. Direct throughput, no node bottlenecks, no bandwidth ceiling. This isn't a sales claim — it's daily operational reality.
Real Engineering, Not Marketing
100 kVA inverters. Generator backup. 10 Gbps tiered fibre. Cabinet extraction ventilation. Real-time backups. Every piece of the spec is documented, tested, and contractually backed.
Centric Service Model
10-camera body corporate or 2,000-camera mining operation — same infrastructure standard, different size envelope. We grow with the customer instead of capping the customer.
South African Data Residency
Your CCTV footage stays in South Africa. POPIA-aligned by default. Service agreements drafted under SA law. Local support, local engineers, local accountability.
Platform-Agnostic Hosting
Dahua DSS, HikCentral, Provision, Milestone, Genetec, Avigilon — we host them all. Your VMS choice doesn't lock you into our infrastructure or out of it. Move freely.
One Bill, One SLA
Stop juggling internet provider, generator service, aircon contractor, server vendor, IT staff and a part-time POPIA consultant. One supplier. One bill. One contractual SLA that holds.
Move your CCTV to a proper home.
Book a 30-minute discovery call or come visit the data centre yourself. We'll walk you through the infrastructure, the SLA, the migration plan, and the real per-camera number — without the sales theatre.
Production scale
20,000+ cameras hosted live. Real infrastructure, real customers, real uptime. Not a pilot.
Real SLA
99.9% uptime guaranteed contractually. 100 kVA power. 10 Gbps redundant. World-class cooling.
Centric service
Sized to you — small business or enterprise. Same engineering standard. Same SLA. One inclusive number.