VLans or another actual network...

[azjeep 0]

I work for a manufacturing company and I have been tasked with re-designing the entire CCTV system. Currently we have crap, wannabe foscam cameras. Thats right, they arent even good enough to be foscam, they are total crap.

 

I want to do an IP based setup since I have an existing computer infrastrucutre. I have all Cisco POE switches throughout the facility.

 

I want to get about 30 IP based cameras for various coverage.

 

Question, will 30 cameras saturate my IP network and slow down the computers? Do I need to put them on another VLAN? Do I need to put them on entirely different switches and run a camera network and a computer network?

 

Thanks

[SectorSecurity 0]

My Suggestion would be to put them on a seperate switch and have 2 VLANS, 1 for cameras and 1 for management. This would allow you to access your cameras while keeping them seperate. This will also save your network from saturation as 30 cams will produce a lot of packets.

 

If you do use the existing gear a VLAN is the way to go, depending on how you set it up you may be able to reduce the impact to the rest of the network, just remember any and all problems are always blamed on the last guy to touch anything.

[BlueBlazer 0]

I would agree, with everything Sector said. Thankfully Cisco switches can take that kind of traffic.

 

The next thing I would ask is what kind of building infrastructure you are looking at, whether you have fiber backbone. Get some info on your current network bandwidth usage.

[highaltitude 0]

Just creating a camera VLAN won't decrease traffic at ton, close to the same amount of data will remain to be passed, just now the switch has to tag it differently. If you have a 100Mbit port, that is the same capacity whether it is a trunk or access port. Sometimes trying to VLAN everything on networks just over complicates the network. Essentially a VLAN separates a broadcast domain.

 

Can you make 30 cameras saturate a network? Absolutely

Can you configure those cameras optimally to reduce network loads? Yes.

 

It really depends on the network and camera choice. The bandwidth of a 720p camera is a lot different than a 5mp camera. Find any network bottlenecks, look at switch bandwidth usage, do some bandwidth calculations, then determine the best route to go. You don't have to have a fiber backbone, but a Gbit backbone is probably a must.

 

Without more information on the current network, it is impossible to accurately help you.

[cctv_down_under 0]

I would run two seperate networks and bridge at a single point - if you only have one server that needs to view it - also if those cisco's are managed switches then - you should just set up QOS and make a threshold that the cameras can not exceed, Most cameras allow bandwidth throttling at the camera anyhow.

 

Some hybrid DVR/NVR devices have two nic's for this exact reason