Avigilon WAN performance

I monitor approximately twenty cameras on four Avigilon servers. One server is on my LAN and the other three servers are are remote locations. Reviewing video of the server attached to the LAN is always incredibly fast. Sometimes, reviewing video of the servers attached via the internet are surprisingly fast, almost instant, while at other times the spinning wheel continues to spin for 10 seconds or more. Is there a way to isolate the reason for the drastic slowdown? My download speed is 120 Mbps and the upload speed of the other servers is varies from 2.5 to 5 Mbps.

upload speed of the other servers is varies from 2.5 to 5 Mbps.

You answered your own question.

When the upstream is 5mbps that's ok but not great. 2.5mbps not good.

Also you need to review in a small pane so the stream is in low res. Then zoom in on still shots.

When the upstream is 5mbps that's ok but not great. 2.5mbps not good.

Any idea why sometimes it is snappy and other times it is not? There are times when it will display full res images almost instantly when I move the cursor on the timeline. Other times, it takes many seconds, even for the smaller low res image.

What cameras are you trying to view? What resolution are they and what is the bandwidth of each camera? Is the WAN connection dedicated to the cameras or is it shared?

What cameras are you trying to view?

Avigilon 5 MP domes and bullets.

What resolution are they and what is the bandwidth of each camera?

One example: 2592 x 1944, 8.4 Mbps

Is the WAN connection dedicated to the cameras or is it shared?

Not sure I understand the question, but I'll try and answer. There are four servers in four locations. The servers are dedicated to running Avigilon. The cameras at each location are connected to the server via a local router. I am connecting to the servers via my desktop and client. One of the servers is on my LAN and it is always fast. My client connects to the other servers via WAN. One of the remote locations is our community clubhouse. The only computer on that LAN is the Avigilon server, and nothing else at that location is connected to the internet.

Let me be more specific about the task that seems much too slow. I am not complaining about delays when viewing cameras in live mode or recorded playback. Specifically, I am referring to viewing a single image. For example, when I am reading license plates, there is a series of red motion bars on the timeline that indicate when a vehicle passes the camera. To read a plate, all I have to do is click in the middle of the red motion bar. There are times when I can click, click, click in the center of successive red motion bars and the images appear almost instantly. There are other times when I click in the middle of the red motion bar and there can be seconds of pause after each click while the client attempts to retrieve the next image.

Sometimes when I drag the cursor across a camera's timeline on a remote server, images appear so fast it's almost magical. Other times, I just click at a single location on the timeline to view a single image and the spinning wheel appears for seconds. I don't expect an 8.2 Mbps stream to fit through a 2.5 Mbps pipe, but a single image is not that much data, and clearly it works well sometimes. I have run speedtest many times on the servers to see if there are any issues with upload speed, but that seems very stable.

Any ideas why downloading a single image could sometimes download instantly and other times generate a spinning wheel lasting 3 to 10 seconds?

Best,

Christopher

What cameras are you trying to view?

 

Avigilon 5 MP domes and bullets.

 

What resolution are they and what is the bandwidth of each camera?

 

One example: 2592 x 1944, 8.4 Mbps

 

Is the WAN connection dedicated to the cameras or is it shared?

 

Not sure I understand the question, but I'll try and answer. There are four servers in four locations. The servers are dedicated to running Avigilon. The cameras at each location are connected to the server via a local router. I am connecting to the servers via my desktop and client. One of the servers is on my LAN and it is always fast. My client connects to the other servers via WAN. One of the remote locations is our community clubhouse. The only computer on that LAN is the Avigilon server, and nothing else at that location is connected to the internet.

 

Let me be more specific about the task that seems much too slow. I am not complaining about delays when viewing cameras in live mode or recorded playback. Specifically, I am referring to viewing a single image. For example, when I am reading license plates, there is a series of red motion bars on the timeline that indicate when a vehicle passes the camera. To read a plate, all I have to do is click in the middle of the red motion bar. There are times when I can click, click, click in the center of successive red motion bars and the images appear almost instantly. There are other times when I click in the middle of the red motion bar and there can be seconds of pause after each click while the client attempts to retrieve the next image.

 

Sometimes when I drag the cursor across a camera's timeline on a remote server, images appear so fast it's almost magical. Other times, I just click at a single location on the timeline to view a single image and the spinning wheel appears for seconds. I don't expect an 8.2 Mbps stream to fit through a 2.5 Mbps pipe, but a single image is not that much data, and clearly it works well sometimes. I have run speed test many times on the servers to see if there are any issues with upload speed, but that seems very stable.

 

Any ideas why downloading a single image could sometimes download instantly and other times generate a spinning wheel lasting 3 to 10 seconds?

 

Best,

Christopher

Is the WAN connection shared with other devices on the network or is it dedicated to the camera system at the remote sites? Is something else using bandwidth other than the server when you are connected to it.

Sounds like your WAN connection at your remote sites are inconsistent.

Is the WAN connection shared with other devices on the network or is it dedicated to the camera system at the remote sites? Is something else using bandwidth other than the server when you are connected to it.

 

Sounds like your WAN connection at your remote sites are inconsistent.

The only devices connected to the router at that remote location is the server and the cameras. There are no other devices on the network.

I think you need to do some bandwidth testing between your remote sites and your LAN. I was running across similar slowness issues and found out that my remote end isp was having 5% packet loss every few months, for a few months. Once I switched to another isp, everything was fine.

Iperf is very good for diagnosing things like this. Just set up a computer running iperf in server mode and whenever it is slow, just do a quick bandwidth test to see if it is a bandwidth issue or what.