White Paper
15-Minute Guide to Medianet: Automate Video
Surveillance Camera Configuration
What You Will Learn
This white paper is for people who are planning a video surveillance solution. It provides an overview of what’s
involved in setting up medianet:
●
Turning on medianet in your switches and servers automates configuration and registration of your Cisco®
Video Surveillance IP Cameras.
●
The process is simple. You change a couple of lines of code on each switch, turn on Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Option 125 on the Cisco switch or router, and create templates for camera
configuration.
●
After that, each camera starts streaming video a few minutes after you connect it.
Why Medianet?
Video surveillance is critical for safety and security. Medianet tools help you make sure that personnel can view live
or recorded video at any time (Figure 1). You can quickly pinpoint the source of quality problems anywhere on the
network. Quickly resolve problems. And optimize performance.
Figure 1.
Medianet Makes It Easier to Configure Video Surveillance Cameras and Manage Performance
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 1 of 4
Medianet also helps you deploy video surveillance cameras rapidly. Without medianet, setting up a camera can
take 15 to 45 minutes. That includes registering the camera to the switch port, configuring camera settings such as
resolution and frame rate, and manually assigning an IP address to every camera. The time savings from medianet
can amount to days or weeks in large deployments with hundreds or thousands of cameras.
Setting up medianet is relatively simple. You simply turn on medianet services on each access switch or router in
your network (Figure 1). This guide summarizes the five steps so you know what to expect. For detailed
configuration information, see the resources at the end of this guide.
Step 1 - Make Sure Your Hardware and Software Is Up-to-Date
Refer to the sources in Table 1 to confirm that your network devices and video surveillance solution support
medianet.
Table 1.
Do Your Hardware and Software Support Medianet?
Device
Required Version
Switches and routers
See Cisco Medianet Data Sheet
Cisco Video Surveillance IP Cameras
See Cisco Medianet Data Sheet
Cisco Video Surveillance Operations Manager
Version 7.2 or later
Mediatrace requires Version 7.5 or later
Step 2 - Turn on Auto Smartports Feature on Your Access Switches
Advantage: When you turn on the Auto Smartports feature, the switch automatically recognizes the type of device
connected to the port. It might be a camera, IP phone, printer, or something else. Then the switch automatically
configures the port with the appropriate VLAN and quality-of-service (QoS) setting. You don’t have to take the time
to manually configure each switch port that will be used for cameras. And you don’t have to be careful to connect
cameras to particular ports.
What to do: Change one or two lines of code on each switch. This process takes less than a minute for each
switch. It is not necessary to turn on Auto Smartports on every switch. If the feature is not turned on for a particular
switch, you need to manually configure those switch ports.
Step 3 - Configure DHCP Servers
Advantage: Without medianet, you need to manually assign an IP address to every camera and to the Cisco
Video Surveillance Manager server. With medianet, the DHCP server on a Cisco or router automatically assigns IP
addresses, saving you the effort to manually assign IP addresses. It also helps avoid configuration errors.
What to do: Set up DHCP Option 125 on the Cisco switch or router that assigns IP addresses. The process is the
same one used to set up DHCP Option 125 to automate address assignments to IP phones. It takes around 10 to
15 minutes.
Step 4 - Create Cisco Video Surveillance Manager Templates to Configure Cameras
Automatically
Advantage: Cameras need to be configured for resolution, bandwidth, frames per second, video retention period,
and redundant server connection. Using medianet, you can set up a template for each model of camera you use.
Then the server automatically applies the template whenever it recognizes a new camera. Automating camera
configuration saves time and avoids errors.
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 2 of 4
What to do: In Cisco Video Surveillance Operations Manager, create a configuration template for each model of
camera you are using. This process takes just a few minutes. Select a checkbox if you want to manually approve
each camera before Cisco Video Surveillance Manager applies the template.
Step 5 - Connect the Cameras to the Network
As you connect each camera, all of the following actions occur automatically, without any manual effort:
●
The Auto Smartports feature associates the camera to the correct switch port.
●
The DHCP server assigns an IP address to the camera and finds the associated Cisco Video Surveillance
Manager server.
●
Cisco Video Surveillance Manager configures the camera by applying the appropriate template for the
camera model.
The cameras start streaming video within seconds of connection.
(Optional) Step 6 - Use LiveAction Application to Visualize Video Surveillance Traffic Flows
Advantage: A medianet feature called mediatrace collects information about traffic flows. After you enable
medianet on your switches, you can view traffic-flow information using a command-line interface. If you use
software from LiveAction, a Cisco Developer Network Partner, you can also visualize the mediatrace information
on a network map. The map shows video flows from end to end, making it easy to spot congested areas and the
source. You can also use LiveAction to apply changes to the routers with a few clicks.
Figure 2.
LiveAction Screenshot
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 3 of 4
Medianet in Action: Los Alamos Public Schools
Los Alamos Public Schools, in New Mexico, wanted to deploy approximately 100 Cisco Video Surveillance IP
Cameras on several campuses. The Cisco partner, Advanced Network Management (ANM), saved two days of
labor by using medianet to automate IP address assignment and associate cameras with Cisco Video Surveillance
Manager.
Ordinarily, assigning an IP address to a camera takes 5 to 10 minutes. ANM eliminated this time by turning on the
DHCP Scope 125 option on the Cisco switch. As a result, cameras automatically obtained an IP address as soon
as they were connected. They appeared in Cisco Video Surveillance Manager a few minutes later. When all
cameras were connected, the ANM engineer made a short visit to the campus to assign each camera a name that
described its location.
“Not having to manually assign IP addresses saved us about 16 hours
for a 100-camera deployment.”
— Vance Krier, Principal Engineer, Advanced Network Management
For More Information
To learn about Cisco Physical Security solutions, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/safesecure.
To download Cisco Video Surveillance IP Camera Deployment Guide, visit http://www.cisco.com and search for
the camera model you are using.
Printed in USA
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
C11-731752-00
05/14
Page 4 of 4