IP Camera - Network degradation

[Simcfc73]

Hi guys,

 

I've read the articles regarding IP cameras and wondering if anyone has had to divide their network because of the added network traffic. I ask this as I have recently purchased a Axis 206 as we are looking at putting cameras on each doorway into the school. This will take at least 15 camera's at a guess and I can see us wanting more when it gets going.

I tested the recording software (Axis Camera Station) by recording an hour on the highest setting which came to around 50mb. I've set up the camera with motion detection (excellent feature) just to record when people enter the area.

The network is pretty new running at 100meg everwhere so I can't really see a problem but just wondered if anyone else had seperated the cameras onto a different network.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Simon Smith

Network Manager

Fulneck School

[sahmeepee]

Our network cameras use their own cabling (coax, i think) to pass data back to their camera server which records the data. Only the server is attached to the IP network, so it only causes traffic on the network when someone wants to retrieve footage or watch the screens live. Watching in live view uses around 0.1% of my bandwidth (=100kbit).

 

The server is storing 16 streams at a reasonable quality and uses up 280GB for an 8 day loop (that's capturing everything, not using motion detection).

[ninjabeaver]

Hi Simcfc73 and welcome to the EduGeek Forums.

 

I've got 5 D-Link DCS-2100+ Cameras and have noticed no degredation of network performance in the year we have been using them. It might be worth just having a dedicated server for the cameras though, with a MASSIVE HDD. Thats the only thing I did for my ones.

[tarquel]

sounds good simon

 

we are apparently getting a VoIP phone system [though I've heard bad things bout them now lol - but for another topic lol] and they'll be installing POE switches everywhere....

 

Am i right in thinking that we can attach IP cameras to these switches and have a central server to record the cameras?

 

I think they'll be changing the fibre terminations into 1Gb speeds and directly connecting them into the poe switches - at least - that's what I plan to go over with the guy on monday.

 

This should bump up the speed of the network considerably i'd wager

 

Shame i bought the non-poe hp procurve 2626 switches for the main cabs lol - still will be of use for the permenantly attached pc's though - no shortage of ports then

 

Cheers

N.

[MkII]

If you have motion detection you'd think all the activity - camera's to servers - would be out of lesson times - so the network utilisation balance would be good.

[sahmeepee]

If you have motion detection you'd think all the activity - camera's to servers - would be out of lesson times - so the network utilisation balance would be good.

 

(Assuming you don't have cameras in classrooms)

[GrumbleDook]

If you are worried about it then have a look at VLANs and QoS. We are seeing what we need for this over the next 5 years, including setting things up for more VidConf systems, VoIP, network cameras ...

[Dos_Box]

If you get an Axis camera please don't forget to turn off the multicast feature, or else your LAN will be flooded with traffic, as I found out with my 211.

[Ric_]

If you get an Axis camera please don't forget to turn off the multicast feature, or else your LAN will be flooded with traffic, as I found out with my 211.

 

You did have the thing set to the highest quality too! Now stop showing off

[mrtechsystems]

Interest topic I was asked today about IP camera for the school security

 

Rough guess what is the cost of them and any recommdations would like to chat with regards to this you can email me

 

[email protected]

 

IT Manager

Thirsk School &

Thirsk Sixth Form College

[CyberNerd]

Check out layer 3 switching for VoIP/Camera networks on your existing network.

 

http://www.3com.com/corpinfo/en_US/technology/tech_paper.jsp?doc_id=5298

[woody]

We recently had an IP camera system installed on top of our admin network. This consisted of 41 ip cameras, some axis and some sirrus. Plus two servers. The servers are running software called Discovere from DVnetworks.

 

We have recently merged the admin network into the curriculum one leaving the cameras on their own cables. However, I have to say that I noticed no slow down in network performance when the admin was running. However we are only talking about 15 pcs and a server plus a few printers. So not like a large curriculum network.

 

I think personally for peace of mind, if you are going to have to pull cables for the cameras anyway, then you should keep them on their own seperate network if this is possible. Also helps with security.

 

All of this cost the school a whopping 30k but it was professionaly installed using POE and good servers but I recon if you did it yourself you could get it a lot cheaper. And especially for just 15 cameras.

[m25man]

Use the Axis Bandwidth Calculators http://www.axis.com/techsup/cam_servers/bandwidth/bw_205.htm

To get an idea of what you need to make allowances for.

 

I had a school that had installed 36 IP cameras and was recording to 2 x video servers in the same room as the schools data servers.

 

They also installed Layer3 switches everywhere in anticipation of problems.

 

When I measured the bandwidth used by the cameras they peaked at only 32 mbs through the Gigabit core switch whilst the kids rushed through the corridors during a lesson change after the rush the raffic was barely noticable with average throughput on the core switch at only 8mbs for all data and camera traffic and this site runs over 300 pcs 8 servers and 36 IP cameras!

 

Image size and frame rates are the key but even at 640x480 and 15 fps x 39 the network never broke into a sweat.

 

VLan them by all means if you have the framework to do so but you might be surprised how light these things can be when tweaked properly.

 

Do you know what traffic flows through your switches right now?

 

Find that out, use the bandwidth calcs then add a couple of cams (in the busiest areas) and recheck your figures.

[ipeye]

Loads of IP Netowkr Information here

CCTV Network Webcam Center: Panasonic CCTV Sovereign International Trade Distributors.