Abstract: The invention is based, in part, on a system and method designed to be able to easily and automatically scale up to millions of cameras and users. To do this, this discourse teaches use of modern cloud computing technology, including automated service provisioning, automated virtual machine migration services, RESTful API, and various firewall traversing methods to facilitate the scaling process. Moreover, the system and method described herein teaches scalable cloud solutions providing for higher though-put camera provisioning and event recognition. The network may segregate the retrieval server from the storage server, and by doing so, minimizing the load on any one server and improving network efficiency and scalability.