The office market relies on security for access control. Companies need to understand who is coming into their offices so that they can protect facilities and information. This is especially true in companies in which intellectual property and sensitive customer information are present. In the simplest application there are cameras and card readers at the access points to facilities. These can be complemented with systems to record visitors or employees. In some cases this is localized information, but in a growing number of facilities this information is centralized in the corporate IT system.

In localized environments the cameras are often analog and feed into a digital video recorder (DVR). The data is stored on a hard disk drive (HDD) and typically retained for 30 days. In some of the more sophisticated applications the cameras might be internet protocol (IP) cameras with the data stream being fed to a Web-based system that can be accessed from several locations. These systems often rely on the network storage systems to retain both the image data and the statistical data.