IP creation for New CCTV network

[kennysarmy]

I've just had some Ubiquti Edge switches and a core switch delivered!

 

New fibre around parts of the school will be finished tomorrow and CCTV cameras and IP encoders are going in next month.

 

Tomorrow's job is to set up the new switches with IP addresses.

 

Is there a preferred IP addressing scheme when setting something like this up?

 

I'll ultimately have no more than 100 cameras (currently 50) hung off the various edge switches.

 

I was thinking of going:

 

172.16.0.1 for the core switch

 

172.16.0.10 - 172.16.0.29 for the edge switches

 

172.16.0.30 onwards for the cameras and encoders.

 

Subnet mask 255.255.255.0

 

 

Any possible issues with that?

[pantscat]

Is it just dedicated for CCTV use? or will you VLAN it off?

[kennysarmy]

Hi

It's a physical separate network.

[AlanD]

...what?.... So you are going to have two physically separate networks in the school...and you are going to maintain both?

 

...I could understand you wanting to segregate the camera system onto its own vlan….and yes...I'd probably be wanting some LAGs (or possibly 10Mb/s links) between switches....

 

Why pay for two systems?

[kennysarmy]

...what?.... So you are going to have two physically separate networks in the school...and you are going to maintain both?

 

...I could understand you wanting to segregate the camera system onto its own vlan….and yes...I'd probably be wanting some LAGs (or possibly 10Mb/s links) between switches....

 

Why pay for two systems?

 

It's only a few switches - not exactly a massive expense?

 

We've got spare fibre capacity to nearly every cabinet and took the opportunity to install some new fibre to give us extra spares for our main network and needed pairs for our CCTV network - how much are you thinking this is costing to segregate it?

[Blue_Cookeh]

Sounds like a backwards way of doing things nowadays considering the flexibility and easy of management you'd get from simply shoving the system on a different VLAN - at next to 0 cost.

[pantscat]

Well, ultimately it's up to you - but I'd keep it on the main LAN and just VLAN it off.

Easier administration, monitoring, etc...

[kennysarmy]

Sounds like a backwards way of doing things nowadays considering the flexibility and easy of management you'd get from simply shoving the system on a different VLAN - at next to 0 cost.

 

Thanks, but it would not be next to no cost as the majority of our current edge switches are at capacity anyway - so we'd still end up spending money - always more than one way to do things in IT, I'd not be that confident setting up the VLAN stuff so at least this way I know it's not going to have any affect on my curriculum/admin network.

[AlanD]

...so if your switches are at near capacity - even more a reason to invest to improve the single network....with LAGs, faster links, whatever....

 

BUT...I hear what you say.....Anyhow...I'd be choosing an address scheme that was "compatible" with the existing network - so that if you ever did decide to join them together - because you wanted to put an extra camera - where there happens to be an existing curriculum network access point - you can just plug it in.

 

....and I'd be VLAN'ing the new network from the outset in preparation.

[ITGuyWestMidlands]

Spend the money increasing the capacity of your current network, no point in duplicating things

[Davit2005]

With a seperate CCTV physical network you are going to have the same sort of issues as keeping a seperate vlan. Introducing a new dedicated switching system for CCTV is jus going to add to the admin and complexity.

 

As others have said, invest the money increasing capacity in your existing network, create a vlan on your existing switches jus for CCTV. We do not have the gateway of our CCTV system on our core switches which keeps it all to a layer 2 network. An outside company is responsible for managing the CCTV system in our case as we are a big org.

[psumner1992]

We went down the route of a separate network for CCTV in the beginning, after a year we merged with the main network on a dedicated VLAN.

 

Reasons:

1) Simpler for management as the cameras and recorders can be accessed from multiple locations onsite rather than limited places linked to the CCTV infrastructure.

 

2) When you want to add extra cameras/recorders you can attach to existing patched sockets without the need for running new cabling each time.

 

3) You can configure email alerts for motion during certain hours of the day, e.g. nighttime to spot any intruders.

 

We were running out of capacity on our main switches so we purchased dedicated HP 2650-48 switches for IP cameras from eBay for around £35 - £40 each, only 10/100 switch ports which were ideal as the cameras only run at 10/100 anyway but there are 2 gig uplink ports to connect to main network which were perfect for our needs.

 

Our site has around 60 IP cameras and 2 recorders and adding around another 40 cameras this summer.

 

We haven’t noticed any speed issues with adding CCTV to main network with dedicated VLAN but all our main network switches are gig to the client and 2 x LAG Gig uplink ports back to the core.

Edited July 29, 2018 by psumner1992