Cisco Extends Medianet Support to Third-Party Cameras

  • Sep 21, 2011

Cisco recently announced a series of safety and security innovations powered by a comprehensive Medianet architecture. Together these innovations support the evolution of Cisco's strategy towards a solutions-oriented services-led approach that will enable Cisco customers and large security integrators to build highly scalable network-based security systems that better protect people, property and critical infrastructure.

At the ASIS show, Cisco today underscored its continued commitment to open standards by demonstrating video support for ONVIF-compliant cameras. The company is also for the first time extending its Medianet Services Interface software to certified video surveillance partners to automate and streamline the way in which Cisco networks recognize, configure and monitor the service levels for third party IP cameras.

As part of Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities initiative, Cisco is also introducing new communications interoperability solutions and enhancements. Real-time communication is critical in times of emergency. Currently in many cases, firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and public safety professionals communicate on different radio frequencies and with different systems, creating barriers to providing a coordinated and efficient response during crises.

Enhancements to Cisco Video Surveillance Manager 6.3.2

Cisco introduced a new high density Physical Security Storage Series platform with the ability to manage video recording of up to 120 terabytes of storage, and 60 disks in only 4RU of rack space, and up to 240 terabytes, and 120 disks in only 8U of rack space.

Video Surveillance Manager also now supports third party cameras with extended edge storage; this approach effectively extends the value of VSM 6.3.2 to the edge of the network to intelligently manage offload. Working closely with VideoIQ, the leader and pioneer in distributed storage surveillance solutions, Cisco will be integrating VideoIQ's iCVR-HD High Definition line of cameras, including their onboard storage, into Cisco's Video Surveillance Manager.

Cisco today demonstrated ONVIF 2.0 streaming video integrated with Cisco Video Surveillance Manager. For customers with third party IP camera deployments, this capability aims to help protect existing investments and maximizes their choice of deployable cameras.

Cisco IP Interoperability and Communications System (IPICS) 4.5

Cisco IPICS is a complete IP-based dispatch and incidence-response solution enabling rapid, reliable communication using whatever desktop or mobile device is at hand to provide public safety personnel with continuous, real-time communication as well as streaming video.

At ASIS, Cisco is demonstrating support for the latest generation of open IP standards interoperability between P25 radio networks and the IP network infrastructure using P25 ISSI gateway capabilities and a universal media services appliance. P25 offers a number of benefits over traditional analog radio systems including improved coverage, better interoperability, and more efficient use of the radio spectrum.

Extending medianet to the industry

Cisco  announced that its Medianet support has been extended to Cisco and other third party cameras. VideoIQ is the first camera vendor to publicly announce its intent to embed Medianet Services Interface software into its cameras to help automate the way that its cameras interface with Cisco network switches.

The Medianet architecture delivers a smarter network, smarter endpoints, cloud services and shared media services. With Medianet Services Interface software, IP cameras can be auto-configured upon network connection, and provided with the specific network bandwidth and security they need. Camera connections can be diagnosed and even tested with "synthetic" traffic to ensure a trouble-free deployment.

Analog to IP-Encoders

Cisco also announced new 4 and 8 port standalone encoders that complement its existing 16-port chassis-based analog to IP video encoders to further support customers in migrating existing deployments to the IP network.

 

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