Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

1. Company profile

   Milestone, founded in Denmark in 1998, is a leading manufacturer of open network monitoring systems (leading global brands).

   Milestone is the first company in the world to develop a network-based open platform monitoring system. Milestone's VMS products are reliable, functional and stable, supporting more than 4000 webcams, video encoders, DVR and image capture cards of more than 200 brands, and are sold in more than 200 countries around the world.

2.VMS product introduction

   Milestone Systems offers various types of video surveillance products, and XProtect ®video management software is designed with an open architecture and has more compatible IP cameras, encoders and digital video recorders than any other VMS manufacturer. The product is based on a truly open platform that integrates with today's best analytics and business solutions and can be extended in the event of any innovation in the future.

   products suitable for large, high-security systems are XProtect Corporate and XProtect Expert series:

XProtect Corporate:XProtect Corporate is a powerful open platform IP VMS system with a central management interface. It provides efficient system management capabilities that cover all cameras and security devices, regardless of their size and distribution across multiple sites. XProtect Corporate supports an unlimited number of cameras, users, and venues, making it ideal for systems that require high accuracy in situational awareness and incident response. In addition, this version also provides the highest reliability for systems with high security requirements. XProtect Expert:XProtect Expert is an advanced open platform IP VMS system with a central management interface. For a large system composed of multiple video servers, it can be regarded as a single system to implement efficient management. XProtect Expert provides situational awareness across multiple locations and supports an unlimited number of cameras. XProtect Expert is ideal for day-to-day users and operators who need complex real-time monitoring capabilities, with efficient warning processing capabilities and the ability to mark suspicious events for later review.

   products suitable for small and medium-sized systems are the XProtect Enterprise,XProtect Professional,XProtect Express,XProtect Essential series: XProtect Enterprise:XProtect Enterprise is an efficient and open platform IP VMS that helps operators view the locations of multiple sites with an unlimited number of cameras. Users can react quickly to events and export videos efficiently. The software provides excellent situational awareness, multi-level interactive maps, complex alarm processing capabilities, and a unique camera navigator for tracking moving objects. XProtect Professional:XProtect Professional is a comprehensive and open platform VMS, which provides users with a visual overview of the monitoring system and displays the location of the camera through an interactive map. Alerts are displayed directly on the map so that users can easily and quickly identify and resolve accidents from the entire system. In the event of an accident, users can easily find relevant video clips and export evidence using efficient video search tools. There is no limit to the number of servers and cameras supported. XProtect Express:XProtect Express is a convenient and affordable open platform VMS for companies that need to integrate third-party applications, such as analytics and access control systems. Applications can be integrated directly into the software, creating a solution with enhanced capabilities and a common interface. XProtect Express supports 48 cameras, with efficient video search tools and a variety of export options, allowing users to quickly gather evidence when needed. The XProtect Essential Lite Edition supports up to 8 cameras and has unlimited retention time, making it the most feature-rich VMS in the free software. This product is a safe choice for small business owners who want to protect their employees and assets by monitoring video. XProtect Essential Lite supports the best mobile applications in the industry.

There are three types of clients for    XProtect: XProtect Smart Client:XProtect Smart Client is a powerful, easy-to-use browsing client application that is suitable for monitoring the daily operation of the system. Through it, users can seamlessly access real-time and recorded video, instantly control the camera and connected security devices, and view a comprehensive video overview. The client provides advanced functions such as accident detection and response, together with a series of tools for finding and exporting evidence, making it the best choice for video surveillance tools, suitable for systems of any size. There are 27 languages to choose from in XProtect Smart Client, and the user interface can be optimized according to the tasks of each operator and the specific capabilities and privilege levels. XProtect Web Client:XProtect Web Client is a simple, intuitive, Web-based client application for video viewing, playback and sharing of XProtect VMS and Milestone Husky NVR products. With XProtect Web Client, users can instantly access the most commonly used monitoring functions, which are easy to operate and can be quickly used by users at any level. Milestone Mobile:Milestone Mobile is a free downloadable application designed by Milestone that seamlessly interfaces with XProtect video management software (VMS) and the Milestone Husky ™NVR series. By installing an additional feature Video Push, users can push real-time video from the device camera directly to the Milestone system so that they can learn about it immediately in the event of an accident anywhere.

The comparison diagram of the    XProtect series products is shown in figure 1.

3. Technical characteristic analysis 3.1. System architecture

   this section focuses on analyzing the system architecture of XProtect Expert and XProtect Corporate products.

The    system components diagram is shown in figure 2:

The main server-side components in the    system are described as follows:

Management server (Management server): the management server is the core component of VMS. The management server handles the configuration of the system and other distributed components (such as video recording server), and the configuration data is stored in the relevant RDB (MS SQL SERVER). The management server provides a component and client repository (System components and clients repository), which is very convenient for users to download components and client software directly from the management server and install them on other machines. Service channel (Service channel): the service channel is responsible for the interaction between various services and various configuration messages. The third party component can monitor the service channel. Video recording server (Recording server): the video recording server is a server that deals directly with the monitoring front-end. Its functions include, but are not limited to: obtaining the front-end real-time media stream and metadata (metadata), obtaining the status and device parameters of the access equipment, recording the media stream, triggering system events, and so on. Using Milestone Interconnect technology, the video recording server can interact with Milestone products. The two important components of the video recording server are: device driver (Device drivers): the video recording server contains multiple device drivers, which are the interface between the video recording server and the VMS access device. The device driver type can be a specific manufacturer's device driver or an ONVIF-compatible driver. When the video server is installed, the device driver of the cooperative manufacturer has been installed by default, and the driver of the required manufacturer can also be downloaded from the official website. Media library (Media database): the video and audio generated by the system operation, and the metadata (front-end video and audio data, video data, etc.) is stored in the media library. The media library has the functions of hierarchical multi-level archiving (tiered multistage archiving), video and audio encryption and signature. Event server (Event server): the event server handles services related to events, alarms, and maps. The Milestone plug-in written by the third-party cooperative manufacturer can be deployed in the event server (see Section 2.1.3.3, you can interact with your own system by accessing system events). The data generated in the event server is stored in a SQL SERVER database shared with the management server. Log server (Log server): the log server uses logs generated in the SQL SERVER database storage system shared with the management server, including system logs, audit logs (Audit log), and rule logs (Rule log). Mobile server (Mobile server): the mobile server provides access to Web clients and mobile clients of XProtect and can be regarded as an access gateway. In order to adapt to the bandwidth of Web users and mobile users, mobile servers also provide transcoding services (bit rate reduction).

Windows server cluster technology (Failover Clusters in Windows Server) is used in    system to realize HA (supporting cold backup (hot-standby) and hot backup (Cold-standby) of each part).

The deployment view of the    system is shown in figure 3:

The video surveillance system of    using XProtect Expert and XProtect Corporate products can use Milestone Federated Architecture and Milestone Interconnect technology to interconnect and integrate with other Milestone systems to build large-scale systems (with XProtect Corporate as the central system). As shown in figure 4.

3.2. Distributed operation 3.2.1. Milestone Federated Architecture

   Milestone Federated Architecture is an interconnected architecture and technology that supports the interconnection of multiple independent XProtect Corporate and XProtect Expert sites into a large system (with a XProtect Corporate central system) to run. This provides operators with the ability to access all cameras in the system and to centrally manage all federated sites.

   in this federated architecture, each site can be managed either by the top node of the federated system or directly by the user as an independent site, as shown in figure 5.

In the    federation architecture, each site forms a hierarchical tree with a parent-child relationship, and Milestone requires that a XProtect Expert site can only be a child of a XProtect Corporate site. Whether the parent site can access the resources of the child site depends on whether the user logging in to the parent site is bound to the user of the child site (if so, the parent site can use the user rights of the binding child site).

When    is implemented, all sites should be in a unified domain (windows domain), and the management servers of all sites should run under the same Active Directory account.

Figure 6 of    shows how to add a Federated site to the administrative client.

   figure 7 shows the site resources displayed on the XProtect client.

3.2.2. Milestone Interconnect

   Milestone Interconnect technology is an interconnected architecture and technology that centrally manages all Milestone video surveillance solutions from a single XProtect Corporate central site.

   's Milestone products connected using Milestone Interconnect technology include a variety of products (unlike Milestone Federated Architecture, which only supports XProtect Corporate and XProtect Expert), as shown in figure 8.

The    central XProtect Corporate site drives front-end devices (such as IPC and encoders) connected to the remote site through devices (products) on the recording server, so that remote site video can be managed at the central site, as shown in figure 9. With Milestone Interconnect, video recordings can be saved at a remote site or at a central site.

Figure 10 of    shows the process of connecting the XProtect Corporate site to the Axis camera through Milestone Interconnect.

3.2.3. Comparison of two solutions

   Milestone Federated Architecture and Milestone Interconnect are two schemes for building large-scale integrated systems provided by Milestone, and they are consistent in the goal of using central management.

   Milestone Interconnect is suitable for the integration of heterogeneous small video surveillance systems or surveillance devices. after integration, the central site can access the video source directly. Milestone Federated Architecture interconnects the management servers of the XProtect Corporate or XProtect Expert system at each site, and each independent subsystem forms a tree hierarchy.

3.3. Open and compatible 3.3.1. MIP SDK

The plug-in architecture of    Milestone products allows developers to integrate security solutions and provide truly open platform technology with the released application programming interface (API).

   Milestone Integration Platform (Milestone Integration platform, hereinafter referred to as MIP) is integrated in XProtect Smart Client,XProtect Management Client,XProtect Management Application,Management Server,Event Server and other products.

   MIP SDK (Milestone Integrated platform Software Development Kit, Milestone Integration Platform Software Development Kit) enables third-party systems to be easily integrated into XProtect software. MIP SDK includes development integration tools, interface documentation, .net DLL, development guide and other parts.

   figure 11 shows the different ways to integrate into XProtect software:

Protocol integration: protocol integration means that third-party applications interact with XProtect products through protocols negotiated with each other (such as device control, media streaming, etc.). Protocol integration has the characteristics of operating system independence, programming language independence, network-based and so on (such as SOAP-based device control, video recording and other commands). Component integration: third-party applications can use the components provided by MIP to interact with Milestone servers. Third-party applications can access video streams through components, PTZ control of IPC and other operations. MIP components include, but are not limited to: ActiveX controls, MIP. NET libraries, Milestone Media Toolkit. Plug-in integration: a MIP plug-in is developed by Milestone partners and runs on MIP products. The MIP plug-in can be applied to the client of the XProtect product or the event server, extending the function of the XProtect client product (similar to the plug-in mechanism of Eclipse) or the processing logic of the event server. The operation of MIP plug-ins depends on the MIP environment, and the MIP environment makes all kinds of MIP plug-ins have a unified running environment.

It should be noted in    that the development of components and plug-ins in component integration and plug-in integration is based on the .NET environment, and it is recommended to use the C # language. You can view the installed plug-ins in the XProtect client administration interface, as shown in figure 12.

3.3.2. ONVIF Bridge

   ONVIF Bridge is part of MIP (Milestone Open platform) and appears in the 2016 Milestone product catalog. ONVIF Bridge is based on ONVIF standards and specifications, and provides an external interface to access media data (real-time streaming and video recording) in Milestone's VMS products through ONVIF standards. External organizations can integrate Milestone's VMS products into their own central monitoring solutions through ONVIF Bridge.

   's current ONVIF Bridge products support ONVIF's ONVIF Profile G and Profile S and use the RTSP protocol to interact with ONVIF clients requesting media streams. The schematic diagram is shown in figure 13.

4. reference

  . Https://www.milestonesys.com/solutions/platform/product-index/

   2. Https://www.onvif.org

   3. Https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732488(v=ws.10).aspx

   4.John Rasmussen,Milestone Federated Architecture,white paper,2016

   5.John Rasmussen,Milestone Interconnect,white paper,2016

   6.Milestone,XProtect MIP SDK 2016 R3 Getting Started Guide,2016

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