Best practices for multiple PC DVRs in one network?

[djslack 0]

Hello all,

 

I do some PC tech work for a company that provides Geovision PC based DVRs. I've been doing it for a couple of months. Some of our clients have multiple DVRs in a single location. Previously these machines have just had separate ports forwarded (i.e. 4550/4551, 5550/5551) although this adds confusion to clients when they go to remote view, unless we go and configure the multiview client at every pc they want to view their DVRs from.

 

I've just been hit with several of these in a row, and there's got to be a better way. I am fairly competent at networking but far from an expert with Geovision. Is there a better way to do this? One-to-one NAT would be great but this isn't widely available in routers and I try not to get too involved with the client's networks, plus it requires they have multiple public IPs. I have seen some of the things on this board where the ActiveX controls are accessed directly instead of using the Multiview client, but assuming the client will use the built-in options (web interface, Multiview, Remote Viewlog) what is the best way to handle accessing multiple DVRs in a single network over the Internet with an eye towards ease of use for the end user?

[Soundy 1]

If you're talking about web access, you could always create a web page on one of the DVRs consisting only of links to each machine's web interface at the appropriate port... something along the lines of (substituting for html tags)

 

(url=http://dvr1:5550)click here for DVR 1(/url)

(url=http://dvr1:5551)click here for DVR 2(/url)

(url=http://dvr1:5552)click here for DVR 3(/url)

 

Beyond that, you could implement a scripted install of the Multiview client, with instructions that they need only to run this simple package and all will be installed and configured as necessary. How well the base installer itself can be scripted, I have no idea - it may require a utility like SysDiff.