What computer to use for NVRs?

Is everyone building computers or using Dell or HP (whatever) computers for their NVRs? If you are building the computers what is your warranty?

Also, I have been reading a lot on this forum and people are saying NVRs are not a reliable as DVRs so I would like to know if you using PC or Server setups?

Thank you

we build them and give a year warranty.

If you want more features and better tweaking options go PC based. If you can't solve PC issues that might happen and prefer simplicity stick to DVRs.

I use our stock standard BHPB server (SQL build) for our NVR system. We used Dell 2850 when we first put them in. Now we are using HP servers. My next itteration will be virtualised to a HP Blade servers with SAN for storage. We will look at a DR site offsite or in a separate server room.

When you are dealing with real servers hardware not PC, properly build and maintained there is no way that DVR is anywhere near a reliable, compliant scaleable or secure as NVR. Its a big outlay but if you already have the Enterprise infrustructure the total cost of ownership is lower.

DVR should be no different than an NVR as far as hardware.

I thought you had to put a capture card into the server?

What's your point?

Other than now the DVR is more secure as there is one less failure point (a network - actually DVR uses the network too)

Same Computer hardware either way.

Can't put a capture card in a blade, you can't distribute storage transparently around the network. You are always bound by geography and physical presence.

I dont use blades, I build my own computers.

And yes you can distribute storage around the network.

We went over all this before?

Its still the same computer hardware, everything is basically the same.

There are pros and cons for both, but the DVR can do both while the NVR is limited.

I would rather a DVR that works with both IP Cameras and CCTV cameras, than just an NVR that only does IP Cameras .. plus that DVR is like a network switch, but it also records .. you can then use CMS software to monitor and record all the IP and CCTV cameras from anywhere in the world.

But I would probably just setup a simple NVR for the IP cameras by itself (only if needing megapixel) .. I just dont see any application using only IP cameras though, I can see them as an add on.

In any event, the DVR and NVR are built using the same Computer Hardware. You can go smaller on the NVR case though.

We have about 30 servers in 3 geographically independent server rooms in different buildings 28 databases on 22 servers, several databases on some of the servers. About 18 of those databases are low resource utilisation including the database component of the NVR. We can get rid of 20 servers and replace them with 6 blades, 2 in each sever room along with SAN. The result will be total redundancy, saleability and disaster recovery for all those services and databases and storage. We will still use dedicated high-end application servers for the heavy duty databases and separate the SAN based on a disk utilisation requirement. So the NVR will have dedicated high speed storage with arrays designed for contiguous writing but shared database and licensing services will be on the Blade servers. Other services to be placed on the blades will be Web, DHCP, DNS, AD, NTP, SNMP, F&P, OMS, Licensing services, and MS SQL. Been planning this about 3 years and have an even more elaborate 5 year plan to bring 5 or more sites together. Any server with dedicated hardware just doesn't fit the system. Even a USB or Parallel port dongle is unacceptable we favour internet based dongles. Puts things in perspective with you can reduce 20 servers down to 6 but 1 gets left behind because it had a non virtual piece of hardware attached.

Guess we have different focus, You are looking at CCTV systems in multiple sites where I am looking at many different systems in one site. My biggest issue is not hardware cost but management cost, keeping a team together who know how the systems work. I am always concerned about all my systems and the best way to manage them all. The NVR system is one of the easiest systems we have to deal with, it is a subset of many of the other systems. Cost benefit analysis between NVR and DVR you would probably go DVR. But when you do a CBA on rationalising 30 server and 28 databases your focus changes to standardisation and small things like a dongle or a card make a huge difference, why build and maintain a sever when you don't need to. As you said you don't use blades, you don't have a 70+ different services to deliver at one site, so you don't have to. However that doesn't mean you customers shouldn't and aren't be thinking about it.

And when the internet goes down?

Im still recording on site.

And I didnt even have to use a single acronym.

Ha ha ha

Reply coming shortly

you mean the network right? All three server rooms and two control rooms are currnetly Lan. The offsite network wan not internet

Thought you were talking Internet .. oh well .. anyway, bottom line is the NVR and DVR Computer hardware should be the same, the NVR should be using hardware at least as good as a DVR uses.

Besides, Woody is talking about a networked PC system that most clients would never be able to maintain, most just want plug and play, use an IR Remote to view live video, and deal with evidence sharing if the need ever arises. And oh yeah, they dont want to pay for any of it.

If the 1100km fibre cable gets dug up.....again. MOFO sat dish. Still waiting to close the loop to the North need about 300km of fibre buried then we will have redundancy.

Old school disk array and tape (Dell) 15k disks

One of the nastier apps to support. Alarms on about 150 onboard sensors on the trucks and shovels. CAN Bus to RS422 to IP, Saves us more money than CCTV, Shutting down a motor early can save around $300k on the rebuild.

Wireless IP trailer, brings in trucks, cameras, two way radios, radars, and ground monitoring on IP

Simulator, I are looking at retrofitting this to remote control autonomous trucks on IP. so using live IP cameras on the trucks. Also looking at drills

New Small IP comms trailer. 2m long box with 19u rack space 15m pneumatic mast, work platform and 1400w solar power 125w continuous power 400kg batteries. About to build 3 more but 5m long boxes, 500w contiuous power with 60u rack space, 1600kg of batteries and 300Mb/s wireless bridges.

Looks like your company has some serious money to spend

Looks good

Besides, Woody is talking about a networked PC system that most clients would never be able to maintain, most just want plug and play, use an IR Remote to view live video, and deal with evidence sharing if the need ever arises. And oh yeah, they dont want to pay for any of it.

Ha ha can relate to that, I use to work in computer retail. They want everything available for less money delivered yesterday.

Agree

you have to go with Hardware RAID, because software raid isnt all that good

If you get a virus, its on all drives

if you get a spike, it affects all hardware,

If the p/s shaits itself, there goes ur server, ur offline and the only thing s/w raid is good for is cheap servers...

Looks like some serious earthworks happening at that place, and some serious money being spent- ie labour saving

Blades are more that raid. They are a diskless server. Available in two physical sizes. The larger size has 4 quad cores with up to 128GB of memory. There are two chassis available, the larger will hold up to 8 large blades. You can fit 4 large chassis in a 42u rack.

Up to 128 quad cores 512 cores and 4094GB of memory in one rack. The disks are all SAN and can be virtual. You then use VMWare to run instance of the servers you require and allocate memory and processors to each virtual server. If you run into trouble you can start another instance of that server on the same blade cluster or on a different set of blades and move the server over seamlessly. You can allocate the memory and processing power as you see fit. The OS is loaded of flash and backing up the OS and system the old way becomes a thing of the past as the image is a live load.

I have been looking at installation that use redundant blade server, switch fabric, fibre, San and San switch fabric. Each server runs 8 network cards crossing to the redundant switches. Then the switches are linked for cross redundancy then the entire data centre is replicated in two other disaster recovery sites. Each switch is cross linked with the redundant switches at the disaster recovery sites. As an exercise they flick over to DR sites at any moment then that site becomes live till the next test.