ptzguy 0 Posted March 2, 2011 Is it possible to add a 2nd NVR via a VPN?? Is it just a case of plugging the VPN into the switcher and configuring the software and network settings on the 2nd NVR identical to the existing NVR?? Anybody tried this? The set-up in question is Axis. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. BUMP Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted March 8, 2011 Possible, yes... not even necessarily difficult. Practical, though, is another matter: you not only need enough bandwidth for the camera traffic, but you need to account for the overhead of the VPN itself, which can potentially increase bandwidth requirements by up to 50%. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ptzguy 0 Posted March 8, 2011 ok thanks soundy. basically, a company has a seperate depot 80miles away from hq. they currently watch the cams installed at the depot in live view using the vpn back at hq... they had a break-in and watched in awe as the intruders helped themselves to several thousands of euro worth of stock before gardai got there. on burning the footage to disc they realised that the nvr hadn't been recording due to a hdd error. they approached me and asked if it was possible to record the cams at the depot and record at hq in case this kind of mishap was to unfortunately happen again. i understand what bandwidth is but knowing what the bandwidth is on the vpn is a little over my bandwidth! they have a dedicated IT guy there so i'll ask him. ...am i right in thinking that if bandwidth was a problem certain cams could be omitted allowing the necessary cams images to 'flow freely'?? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted March 8, 2011 There would be several options to control bandwidth, depending on the system used. If the cameras support a sub-stream, you could use that to record at lower resolution/quality (better than nothing!). Or record at lower framerates remotely. Or, as you say, only record certain cameras. A better option, to my thinking, would be to implement some sort of health monitoring to simply monitor whether the NVR is functioning properly, and produce an alarm or warning if something is wrong, so it can be addressed immediately. One of our customers is doing this with their Vigil installs, many of which include Enhance Tech or QNAP NAS arrays: the Vigil VCM app on his office server pops up a warning and emails him (and me) if a camera goes down, if a DVR is offline, if the DVR isn't holding the required number of days of storage (minimum 90 days), if there's no recorded footage within the past 24 hours, or if a number of other error conditions are met, and we're also looking at implementing something like DriveSitter to monitor the health of the internal drives. The arrays are also configured to send an email if any of their drives show imminent failure; since they're all running RAID5 or RAID6, this gives us a chance to swap a failing drive right away, to avoid any data loss. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thewireguys 3 Posted March 8, 2011 Does your vms support failover or redundant servers? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ptzguy 0 Posted March 8, 2011 Does your vms support failover or redundant servers? Ive just upgraded the software to v2... I can only see 'Alerts' where you can enter upto 3 email addresses - nothing about server/HDD failure... Does Drivesitter send emails Soundy or has anyone got a handy piece of s/ware for the job? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted March 8, 2011 Drivesitter does a ton of cool stuff, check it out! Free 30-day demo! You can configure it to monitor any SMART parameters and inform you if they exceed any specs you set... if the drive temperature gets too high... if the drive fills up... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ptzguy 0 Posted March 8, 2011 EXCELLENT SOUNDY THANK YOU! I just spoke to their IT guy and he is fully aware of DriveSitters capabilities, in fact they have it on their servers so we have a license key!!! They were so keen to record from the hq-end, which they will probably still do, so we didn't even consider this. DriveSitter has got to be my #2 favourite software now(TeamViewer #1)... and I cant wait to get my hands on the license key! Thanks again Soundy - Great stuff, IOU1! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thewireguys 3 Posted March 8, 2011 So you using AXIS VMS? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ptzguy 0 Posted March 9, 2011 So you using AXIS VMS? Axis Camera Station 2.01.011 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thewireguys 3 Posted March 9, 2011 As far as I know Axis doesn't support fail-over or redundant recording. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites