Question Big CCTV network setup

[vesp3r]

Hello everyone. Im currently tasked with creating fairly big cctv network with 100+ IP cameras accross several devices in the same network.
My experience so far is limited to setting up not more that 1 or 2 NVRs in the network so i usually just connect the NVR's to the router and cameras to the NVR

My issue here is that i think setting up 100+ IP devices would strain the router so im not sure how i should connect everything without hindering the everyday work of the router.
What i was thinking innitially was to make inside only network by connecting all the switches that will get the IP cameras and then distribute them to the NVRs but the cameras also needs to be connected to the internet to be viewed from outside network
So how can i achieve both things

 

[bill001g]

This get complex to explain but the short answer is the router will not be the problem. You can connect all the cameras to the router.

Now where it gets more complex is based on bandwidth. Lets say we take a simpler case of you buy a 1 huge switch and hook all the cameras to it. You then take a single cable and hook this to the router. What you have to be concerned about is how much actual traffic is going over that single cable. If you exceed say the common 1gbit port speed you will have issues.

When you have a complex network with multiple switches this problem is harder because now you have to be concerned about multiple different cables that might overload. You really have to understand how much traffic you have and where it going.

You are best off to draw out your network and then draw how traffic flows so you can see where possible cabling bottlenecks exist.

So my general design with no knowledge of you particular restrictions.

I would try to keep all the camera traffic and NVR traffic on their own switches. Then run a single connection between this network and your router. Hook all your other normal office devices on different switches and hook them to the router.
The only traffic that would flow from your camera network to the router would be traffic going to the internet. Traffic going between the cameras and the NVR would never leave the switches. I am going to assume you do not intend to feed huge amounts of your camera traffic out into the internet.

You still have to be careful depending on how much traffic your cameras produce. You for example would not really want all your NVR on a single switch because then you could exceed a cable coming into the switch.

I would be extremely careful about allowing the cameras to have any internet access. There is a long term history of firmware issues where these cameras are taken over by bad people. Even huge providers like ring have been hacked.

My first recommendation would be to remove the internet gateway from all the cameras or set it to some invalid value. This would mean the cameras could only talk to device on your lan and have no access via the internet. To get remote access I would use a VPN on your router or on some vpn box. This would allow you to vpn into your network and since you are now on the lan side of the router you would have access to the cameras.

Other variations on this would be to again remove the gateway so the cameras can not access the internet and then game access to the video by going though one the NVR. It depends on the abilities of the NVR.

It is also going to be a massive nightmare to really get direct access to the cameras themselves. They likely all use the same ports which means you are going to have complex port forwarding rules. Even though VPN can be complex to setup it likely is going to be easier to do and much more secure than using port forwarding.

 

[vesp3r]

Thanks for the reply. So it is all up to how much traffic goes through single cable/connection on my router. After checking the NVR model that will be used i noticed it has 2 lan ports wheres I usually worked with the hybrid models with coaxial connections so i was confused as to how i will make the connections. Im guessing all the "heavy lifting" will be made by the NVR and not the router its connected to.

 

[bill001g]

It all depends on how the cameras actually work and how you choose to use them.

In some systems the cameras feed the NVR and you view all the cameras by going to the NVR to see them. This is the older design where you used to physically hook stuff like analog cameras to your video controller except in this case you would be using ethernet.

The way some other systems work is you also have the choice to directly run to the cameras. Many cameras have the ability to store small amounts of video locally on local flash cards. So they have NVR function built in as well as the ability to watch the camera live.

These same fancy cameras can be hook to NVR systems so you can run both models at the same time.

This tends to be why there is no clear answer to questions of how you hook this equipment up because there are many options.

 

[Mechnical1]

Hello everyone. Im currently tasked with creating fairly big cctv network with 100+ IP cameras accross several devices in the same network.
My experience so far is limited to setting up not more that 1 or 2 NVRs in the network so i usually just connect the NVR's to the router and cameras to the NVR

My issue here is that i think setting up 100+ IP devices would strain the router so im not sure how i should connect everything without hindering the everyday work of the router.
What i was thinking innitially was to make inside only network by connecting all the switches that will get the IP cameras and then distribute them to the NVRs but the cameras also needs to be connected to the internet to be viewed from outside network
So how can i achieve both things

Ther are many options yes. I have, in this last 7-8 months, installed 11+ NVRs and 100+ cameras at 9 different locations. The NVRs we use have a 16 port POE switch integrated into them. Hardest part is cable management. There is one ethernet cable from the NVR to each and every camera. They are pricey, but they abide by the KISS (keep it stupid simple) rule. There are 32 port POE NVRs available also. The only bandwidth issue on your local network would only be caused by someone having the app or apps running an monitoring the cameras.
I have no clue how much any it of costs, since my customer buys all of the equipment. I just do the installs and configurations. As their IT department, I hate doing the camera installs, but do appreciate the income...
I have never noticed a brand name on the NVRs, but this one is basically the same thing.
Let me know if you want more details...
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