Dual Network Interface DVR and NVR Benefits
NVRs / DVRs that have dual NICs. If you don’t understand “dual
NIC”, what I mean is that it has 2nos Ethernet ports (LAN Port). Customers are
wondering what is the need for two NIC cards in the back of the unit. To answer
the question, “What is the reasoning behind the two Ethernet ports (NIC) on my
NVR?” there are three advantages to having these dual NICs. Based on the
network you have, or want to have, you may not be interested in any of these
advantages. Let me be clear when I say just because your NVR has them you do
not need to occupy both NICs. However, if you are going to use only one
Ethernet cable make sure it is plugged into port# 1. That being said, the general
advantages for Dual NICs are Multi-Address, Fault Tolerance, and Load Balance.
If you do not know what these mean don’t feel bad, you will have a better
understanding once you finish this article.
First of all, allow me to explain what Multi-Address means/does.
Multi-Address is a tool to have two different IP schemes connected to your NVR,
obviously your main network will be for the NVR and will plug into port# 1,
then the reasoning for port #2 will be for a switch, whether it be PoE or not
so your cameras and NVR will not be on the same network. The advantage to this
is the NVR will be on your everyday network, and the cameras will be on a
separate network. So if you have a 32 channel system and don’t want 32 IP
cameras bogging down your main network you can have them separate from the NVR
on the main network but still be able to add them with no problems.
First of all, look at the bottom picture, this just shows you that the
NIC on the left is port #2, and the NIC on the right is port#1. So in my demo,
the white cable will be my main network going to the NVR, and the yellow cable
will be my secondary network that plugs into the POE switch for my cameras. The
other two pictures are showing you the configurations you will need to make in
the network tab. The top picture being the main network in “Ethernet1”
configured as “Multi-address”, with a gateway of 192.168.1.1 and an IP of
192.168.1.108. The middle picture is showing you the secondary network for the
cameras in “Ethernet2” configured as “Multiaddress”, with a gateway of
192.168.2.1 and an IP of 192.168.2.106. It is crucial that the two networks be
configured with different gateways and IP’s, otherwise you will cause a
conflict and this will not work.
Another thing you will need to know is when you go into “Remote
Device” and try to add the cameras while they are on the secondary network,
keep in mind the “IP Search” WILL NOT find them. You will need to do a “Manual
Add” and when you do so the gateway will be 192.168.2.1 and the IP address will
be 192.168.2.? whatever you configure. As long as you follow those simple steps
you will be good to go.
Now, the second advantage to the dual NICs is something called
Fault Tolerance. In simple terms, you can have your NVR wired to two different
switches on your network. The benefit to this is if one switch goes down, the
NVR will swap over to your secondary switch, letting your NVR remain
operational. So say you have switch “A” wired to the first Ethernet port of the
NVR and switch “B” wired to the second Ethernet port. Switch “A” is going to be
your primary switch, where your NVR will pull its connection from all the time.
Switch “B” is going to be your secondary port, where your NVR will pull its
connection from if switch “A” was to go out. The way you configure this is
extremely easy. In the network tab you will need to change the “Network Mode”
to Fault Tolerance. Once you do so you will see that “Default Card” changes to
“Primary Port” and that is where you will configure switch “A” to be your
primary switch and switch “B” to be the secondary switch. After you make those
few simple changes you are all set. If for some reason switch “A” goes down,
switch “B” will kick in automatically, allowing your system to remain
operational. The picture below shows the jump from switch “A” to switch “B”
happening, how quick it works, and you do not have to do anything. Look at
where the ping is going steady, then I disconnect the power from switch “A”,
you see it timed out once, and immediately switch “B” kicked in and the ping
remained steady. This just goes to show you how quick the NVR does this by
itself, no command necessary from you.
The third advantage to having dual NICs is a little something
called Load Balance. This means exactly what it sounds like, it is balancing
the load on your network. This configuration will require a piece of equipment
that we do not offer, something called a managed switch. The managed switch
manages the load on your network and keeps the balance nice and steady. So, if
your network is being bogged down, the manage switch will take things from your
main network and switch it to the secondary network, so your connection never
loses its strength. Now, the configuration starts the same way above. Change
“network Mode” to Load Balance and set port#1 to be main and port#2 will be
secondary. Also, say you do not want to buy a managed switch and so you think
load balance is useless to you. You are wrong, there is a way you can still use
the configuration. Each NIC is 1Gig of throughput data, if you set network mode
to Load Balance that combines the NIC’s and now you have 2 Gigs of throughput
data. There are a few things that make that worth your while. You can increase
the resolution of your IP cameras and you can increase the bandwidth of the
cameras. I’m sure there are quite a few more, but I will keep it as simple as
possible. Those are all the things that are beneficial to you with the NVR’s
with dual NIC’s. Hope this was helpful.
