WestPoint · Hardware · Lenovo
The operator's workstation is also a sizing problem.
Rack servers to record with, and workstations for the place where people watch. That second half is nearly always quoted for with an office computer, and it is the one that produces the most complaints in the first month.
What kind of manufacturer it is.
Lenovo · Server — Rack servers and workstations for the operator's position. And that double role is exactly what makes it useful here.
On one side, catalogue rack servers: a stable part number, remote management with its own network address, a support contract with a term and a parts list. It is the same conversation as with any large manufacturer and it is worth the same: what you buy is not the machine, it is that a replacement part exists five years from now.
On the other, professional workstations and desktop machines. That matters because in a video system there are two different machines and people tend to confuse them: the one that records and the one that displays. The one that records works all day with nobody looking at it; the one that displays is the one that gets the complaints, because it is where somebody opens sixteen cameras at once and sees the video moving in jerks.
The operator's position, which nobody sizes.
It is the place where you notice whether the system is properly made, and it is almost always quoted for with the cheapest computer in the catalogue.
Displaying video means decompressing it. A mosaic of sixteen cameras is sixteen videos decompressing at once on that machine, not on the server. If there are also two or three monitors, and on one of them a map or an alarm list, the work multiplies. An office computer does it for a minute and then starts dropping frames, and whoever is sitting there concludes, rightly, that the system is no good.
What fixes that is not the processor: it is the graphics card, because it has a part inside it dedicated to decompressing video that does the job with a fraction of the effort. When choosing one, what you look at is how many monitors it drives, at what resolution and whether the video program knows how to use that decompressor. It is worth checking with the real software, because they do not all make the same use of it.
And there is one of those details that only shows up two years later: the monitors in a control centre are on sixteen hours a day, and an office monitor is not made for that. Nor is the chair, nor the ventilation of the room, nor the cable running across the floor. The position is an installation, not a purchase.
Where it fits in a video installation.
In the recording server of a medium-sized or large installation, with the same sums as always: bays, memory, decoding peak and room reserved for a graphics card if the video is going to be analysed one day. And in the machine for the access control software, which does not have to share ironmongery with the video.
And in the viewing position, which is where this house brings something the other groups on this list do not cover: a workstation with a real graphics card, several video outputs and on-site warranty. Also the position of whoever reviews recordings to pull out evidence, which is a different profile: fewer monitors and more ability to move quickly through hours of video.
Where we would not fit it.
A desktop machine is not a recording server, and it is the most common substitution when a quotation has to be trimmed. It has no redundant power supplies, it has no bays to grow into, its drive controller is another thing altogether and it is not meant to write without stopping for years. It works, and it fails sooner and worse: one day, without warning, and with the recording inside it.
Nor would we simply fit it in an industrial environment: dust off an industrial unit, vibration or forty degrees in August are not the place for an office workstation. There the machine is a different one, fanless and with an extended temperature range.
And in a small installation, a rack server is still more than you need: twelve cameras and one person watching are solved with a self-contained recorder and a decent workstation.
What we do with it.
Half the work is deciding which machine does what.
- Separating the two sizings and writing them down apart: what the recording server asks for and what each viewing position asks for. They are different sums, and putting them together is how you end up with a system that records well and looks bad.
- Testing the position with the real software and with the largest mosaic that is going to be used, before buying the rest. A half-hour test decides the purchase of six machines.
- Leaving room, power supply and air for a graphics card in the server even if there is no analytics today. It is the cheapest reservation in the whole project.
- The server's remote management configured, on its own network, with the client's password and sending an email about any fault.
- The paperwork: what each machine has in it, what warranty it has, when it ends and how a position is rebuilt if it breaks on Monday morning.
Who administers it when we leave.
The servers and the workstations, your IT team. This is their trade.
The workstations in a control centre are managed like any other machine in the house: inventory, updates, antivirus and a copy of the configuration. And it is better that way, because a position that is not in the IT inventory is a position nobody updates. Same with the server: remote console, firmware and alerts, with the tools they already have.
Two agreements that save trouble. One: on the video positions, updating the graphics card driver is not routine —it can change how the video is decompressed— so it is tested on one before being applied to all of them. Two: the server's recording volume is not shared with anything else.
Our side is still what depends on the installation: how many streams each position really takes, what has to change when new cameras come in and how a position is left exactly as it was if it has to be replaced in a hurry.
Where to go next.
What you see at the position depends on what arrives over the network and on what the server can serve. All three are sized together.
Get started
Is the video jerky at the workstation?
Tell us how many cameras get opened at once, on how many monitors, what software is used and what machine is underneath. Nearly always the problem is neither the server nor the network: it is that the position is decompressing more video than it can.