Tap into New Opportunities
Ingram Micro's Solution Centers in Buffalo, N.Y., and Santa Ana, Calif., are staffed by certified engineers on call to answer your questions. Here they explore IP video surveillance and Microsoft's cloud solutions.
IP video surveillance is a growing opportunity, but where do we start?
With today's amazing processing power, building high-resolution, high-frame-rate IP video surveillance solutions is easier and more cost-effective than ever. If you sell servers, storage and networking solutions, then IP video surveillance is a natural fit. Most customers expect high-resolution images because of HDTV. In most cases, the resolution of CCTV SD is not acceptable, and point-to-point coaxial cable runs make no sense in today's world of Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). The price difference between CCTV and IP network cameras can be substantial, so you should view the project from a total cost of ownership.
To get started, set up a small-scale IP surveillance solution for your office using two to four cameras, a PoE switch and a PC with video management software. Experiment with different camera locations, angles of view, camera heights, room sizes and lighting conditions. Also experiment with video motion detection and masking to optimize when images will be triggered for recording. Compare the bandwidth and storage needed for H.264 and MJPEG codecs. You should also compare the two codecs in different lighting levels and network conditions to understand their pros and cons. You may find that storage is a limiting factor, unless you use a high-performance storage-area network or direct-attached storage.
Assess what you have learned. How long did the setup take? Were there any difficulties mounting the cameras to the ceiling and getting Ethernet cabling to the location? How good was the angle of view for the coverage you wanted to achieve? Did the motion detection and masking minimize false positives? Was the lighting and resolution good enough to identify people or license plates?
--Marko Rogan, Solution Center Lead Engineer
How do Microsoft solutions plug into cloud and data center?
Microsoft has many solutions for cloud, including public cloud, private cloud and Software-asa- Service (SaaS). Microsoft's offering for public cloud is Windows Azure and SQL Azure, which provide hosting for web sites, virtual machines, custom applications and services, and data management. Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 are used for a highly managed data center or private cloud. They offer pooled resources that allow for elastic and self-service management, including virtualized networking and usage-based access.
The next area is SaaS. Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription service that provides access to many popular solutions that Microsoft manages in data centers worldwide. Microsoft will upgrade Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, Office Web-Apps and SkyDrive Pro to 2013 versions early this year.
--Tom Mann, Solution Center Engineer/Instructor
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