Network "Re-Design"

[DaveK]

Well, I'm having to admit that a problem I first thought was a camera, then Blue Iris limits, has turned out (as you experts very kindly predicted) to be a network capacity issue. So, now I'm hoping I can re-design my home network topology to keep camera bandwidth from interfering with things like streaming audio/video and internet browsing.

Part of my problem here is that I know just enough about networking to be dangerous.

So, at this point I want a solution that's relatively simple to implement, and I'd like to stay within these boundaries:

• 
  [*=1]Only one Modem/Router, including the internet gateway
  
  
  [*=1]No VLANs, sub-nets, or parallel networks (at this time)
  
  
  [*=1]Powerline system to extend the network for entertainment systems, guest access, etc.
  
  [*=1]IP Cameras all Cat-5 hard-wired through switches to the router, and not using a Powerline extender
  
  
  [*=1]Blue Iris Server connected to Router through a switch that serves all IP Cameras
  
  [*=1]WiFi connections handled by Router or via Powerline WiFi extenders.
  

​

So, in "outline" format the network would look something like this:

1. Modem
2. Router/Gateway
   1. Wireless Connections
   2. Switch (the switch internal to the Modem/Router)
      1. Powerline Interface
         1. Extended Ethernet connections
         2. Extended WiFi access points
      2. Printer
      3. Local Hardwired Computer(s)
      4. Switch
         1. BI Server (headless)
         2. PoE Switch
            1. Cam1
            2. Cam2
            3. Cam3
         3. PoE Switch
            1. Cam4
            2. Cam5
            3. Cam6
         4. PoE Switch
            1. Cam7
            2. Cam8
            3. Cam9

A few questions about this:

1. First, is this a reasonable approach to getting my IP cameras to "play-nice" with my network and not hammering Amazon or Netflix streaming on other parts of the network?
2. I will run the BI server as headless. Do I need to have the PC using Remote Desktop to access the BI Server hard-wired to the camera switches, or should I have sufficient bandwidth in the wireless and Powerline connections to manage it that way.
3. Is there any point in a small network like this that I'll need a Gigabit switch? At 2.2.4, for example? The switch internal to the Router will only handle 10/100.
4. At what point do I need to seriously consider doing a VLAN or subnet for the BI / Camera system?
5. Will I be able to setup Remote viewing access while using this network approach?
6. Are there traps I'm setting myself up for by using the above approach?

Many thanks for help with this, even if it's just pointing me to the right reference sources.

 

[nayr]

thats a very reasonable deisgn.. however, lets take one thing out of the loop.. lets forget your router/gateway has a switch in it..

then move that 4. Switch, up to where the modem/router is.. this is your backbone and if its a decent switch it'll have enough throughput for all the ports to be at full capacity.

so

Modem -> Router -> Network Trunk Switch

WiFi
PowerLine Interface
BlueIris
Printer
Local Computers
​

then branch your 3 poe switches off this trunk, and ensure the uplinks are adaquate for the cameras they handle.

 

[DaveK]

Many thanks for the insight.

So, if I understand correctly, I can hook a decent switch at point 2, and everything except Router WiFi will pass through that. Also, do I understand correctly that even though the Powerline leg runs off this switch, the IP camera traffic to the BI Server through the switch will not impact the powerline throughput?

The cameras are currently set with a CBR of 2048, 10FPS, 3MP resolution, and H264.H. The BI Status window consistently shows about 250kbps for each stream that's been configured this way. All 9 cameras would be doing a total of less than 20Mbps if they were all sending at 2048 kbps. So, If I understand this correctly, good quality 10/100 switches would work just fine here and I shouldn't need any gigabit switches?

 

[nayr]

As long as its quality, it will have more than enough.. for example, my 48 port GigE trunk switch has a switching capacity of 96Gbps.. which is 2Gbps per port for Full Duplex (1Gbps each direction).. its not possible for me to saturate the capacity of this switch, even with every port maxed out.

Dont buy anything but GigE, FastEthernet is pretty much dead.. you want as much throughput as you can muster, your camera ports can be 10/100.. but the uplinks should be GigE and your Trunk switch and everything else should be GigE.

You need overhead on your links so you can upgrade software, download videos, backup configurations, and do other tasks without ever coming close to risking saturating an uplink and ending right back in this boat.

 

[DaveK]

I guess I'm dense and don't quite understand the bandwidth needs here. If I use H264.H, 10FPS, 3MP resolution, and use the maximum CBR choice of 8192 kbps, that's around 25 Mbps uplinked from each POE switch, and about 75Mbps total traffic uplinking to the backbone switch, and mostly confined to the cameras and the BI server. If I understand this all correctly, I can throttle the CBR down to a point that will keep the BI traffic down around 50 Mbps, and that may give me enough remaining overhead to allow Fast Ethernet POE switches for the present time, with a plan to upgrade to gigabit uplink switches in the future?

Also, if I've done this correctly, any bottlenecks in the Blue Iris leg of the network won't affect entertainment streaming on the other parts of the network? And vice versa, of course.

 

[nayr]

75Mbps of IP cameras is 75% duty cycle, constantly always.. all you need is a blip to 100% and your back to the same problem of dropped frames.

never run anything at more than 50% duty cycle, tons of people here cant even get close to 75% before they have all sorts of problems..

your BI traffic is talking to the cameras, but it also has to download updates from time to time and do other things on the network that could eat up whatever remaining bandwidth you have.

if your not streaming video over your powerline network, it wont transit it.. so the bandwidth of that will be unimpacted until a connection is made.

 

[DaveK]

Ok, I agree that getting above 50% bandwidth isn't a great idea. But with this configuration, the POE camera switches would each be running "just" 25Mbps in the uplink to a gigabit switch. Wouldn't the Gb switch be able to easily handle those 3 sets of streams going to the BI Server?

 

[nayr]

yes, for now.. it should be well within the envelope..

but consider, things dont always go to plan.. my 4MP LPR camera has to run at MJPEG for 3rd party software, it alone pushes 32Mbps.. or you might end up adding more cameras for one reason or another and be back over 50% pretty quick.

if you have GigE uplinks, those switches could be safe to add a printer or playstation or something to.. they'd not have to be dedicated to IPC only, you might be able to do away with the powerline network all together.

 

[DaveK]

Well, it looks like I have a workable pathway forward for now. The question is just how many surprises Professor Murphy will direct my way!

Many thanks for the advice and feedback.

 

[JuliusTheodore]

thats a very reasonable deisgn.. however, lets take one thing out of the loop.. lets forget your router/gateway has a switch in it..

​

​

Hi nayr, why are you moving all connections to the one trunk switch, instead of using the built-in ports of the router? My assumption is that everything else is equal, gig ports etc. I'm not a networking guru, just wanting to understand why one would do this. Could be easier to troubleshoot I guess.

thanks!
JT

 

[DaveK]

Hey, Julius!

I don't presume to speak for nayr, but in my case it was good advice. The switch inside the router has to deal with a lot of traffic other than the video network, so already has a lot of overhead. Further, the switch in the router is only 10/100, and with as many cameras as I have it's pretty easy to bump up into the switch limits. This arrangement keeps the video data streams confined to a gigabit backbone switch, so it should never have to deal with the bottleneck at the router.

 

[JuliusTheodore]

Hey, Julius!

... Further, the switch in the router is only 10/100...

That makes perfect sense! (now to go see what the switch in my router really is....)

 

[DaveK]

An easy check, depending on your switch: Simply attach a gigabit switch to one of your router ports. Many of the Gb switches have indicator lights to show if the link is 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps. Of course this only tells you what the link is, and not actual throughput.

 

[DaveK]

Deleted

 

[nayr]

its called the trunk, a decent switch has more than enough throughput to hanle every port at maximum capacity simultaneously.. so if you get a big trunk switch and plug as much as you can into it without brancing off other switches, every device will be practically guaranteed full throughput to/from any other port on the trunk.. regardless of the capacity of the rest of the network.

if you start branching switches off the trunk, then your limited by the uplink capacity.. which is much less than the internal switching throughput... example:

Everything on a: 24P GigE Switch = 48Gbit throughput capacity.
Everything split between 2x 12P GigE Switches = 2Gbit throughput capacity between devices on opposing switches..

One has a bottleneck, the other does not.. with big fat trunk you dont worry about any device impacting the capacity of any other device because there is no choke point.

The dumb switches built into routers are no better than any other switch.. in many cases they may be worse.. hell my Router is running right now off a single network port, my WAN port died so its now running as a single interface router-on-a-stick.

 

[JuliusTheodore]

I apologize for hijacking this thread! In my case there are three GigE ports on the router (Apple Airport Extreme). Although I do have an 8 port gig switch connected to it, I don't know what the uplink specs for it are or if there's a bottleneck there. It's a $25 D-Link switch IIRC. I'm not in front of it at the moment.

Thanks nayr for the info!

 

[nayr]

each port is GigE, so the uplink speed is GigE.. 1000Mbps in each direction.. so 2000Mbps full duplex.

A device plugged into your router, transferring data too/from a device on your 8port switch.. has to share bandwidth on the uplink, and there is a high potential for saturating that uplink... so one device on the network can negatively impact the capacity of another device on the network.

if they are all on the same trunk switch, this is not going to happen.. 2 devices on the trunk can talk to eachother at full speed without impacting other devices on the network.

 

[dryfly]

Nayr,

I have not thought about this! I've got a TP-Link 10/100 switch for 3 cameras, then feeding that into a TP-Link gigabit switch with 3 more cameras on it. That switch is then routed to my AT&T 2Wire Gateway. The ports on the gateway are 10/100 Fast Ethernet. Everything seems to be running fine but is the camera system getting bogged down at the gateway??

 

[nayr]

Whats plugged into your AT&T Router? anything other than your GigE trunk switch? if you have some devices on your router the'd be better served being plugged into your GigE trunk.

On most environments the router is simply routing internal traffic onto the internet, if its local traffic on the same subnet it never touches your router.. and unless you have >100Mbit internet speeds, there is no harm in uplinking it with FastEthernet as you'll choke out your internet long before the uplink.

If you have multiple subnets, that traffic will pass through your router and you'll want one good enough to handle GigE subnet routing.. not many consumer grade routers can pull this off, the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter will and thats why I use it.. I have a half dozen VLAN's on various subnets, and I need a fast router to allow me GigE routing.

 

[dryfly]

Only things plugged into the AT&T router are the gig switch with the cameras and BI server, my desktop computer, and an Envisalink board on my alarm system.

Talk slow and basic and tell me why other devices would be better plugged into the GigE switch instead of directly into the router? Since that switch goes back directly to the ATT gateway (router) it looks like the bottleneck is at the gateway. Why would going downstream in the system make any difference. Man....I'm just learning this network stuff and it ain't easy, but I appreciate your help.