I know it depends on the customer, the criticality of the site, expectations, SLAs, etc., but in general, how long is too long for a camera to be down, meaning an email is triggered, a customer calls asking you to fix, or another resolution is required?
Internal opinions vary widely at IPVM, so interested to hear member opinions.
Place the email/call one minute after the customer has ruled out network or physical damage.
As such, I voted "Longer"
It all depends on the particular camera in question, but I voted longer as a general rule. Some critical cameras will get noticed and reported in under 15 mins, but it would be the exception IMO.
I find it interesting that clients who install a video surveillance system after having gone 20 years or more without one all of a sudden become concerned when their system goes down for more than 20 minutes. To be sure, there are applications where 99.99% uptime is required, but for the vast majority of users, going a day or two without a camera is not really a problem.
Michael, I never disagree with your wisdom, but...
Once a security manager assumes responsibility for a new electronic security solution, it's a race to keep everything up, cause you never know what critical incident is right around the corner. If it's down and misses something critical, the security manager has some explaining to do. Best to figure out and correct the problem ASAP.
I want to be notified after two minutes. I have found that 2 minutes or so to be the sweet spot because it gives a camera enough time to reboot and reconnect if it was a quick power blip or something minor.
Again, this is for ME, an end user, to know about. It is not "call for service" after being down 2 + minutes. If we can't fix it right away or ping it then we get IT involved. If we can't get it back with our troubleshooting steps then we make a phone call.
We're similar. (end-user as well) We'll get emails near instantly but we don't do alert notifications until after 2 minutes which uses the same mechanisms we use for infrastructure & systems monitoring/alerting/on-call.
Other than setting up outbound email alerts that work when the network/email server is operational, how do you know in less than a minute or even a week that you have an issue? Is this is a discussion only regarding CCTV systems with system health notifications that have been setup correctly and a dedicated 24/7/365 resource to receive/act upon the notification? I only ask because there are numerous discussions regarding health monitoring on this site and it seems to be an issue for most members?
This is an enormously frustrating issue. I interpreted the question more personally, as in how I deal with it as an integrator, ie: how long should a camera be down before it is fixed. Most VMS's will notify of a lost video signal fairly quickly. Typically (again, depending on the customer) they will do some minimal digging into the situation to inspect for anything obvious and then call us.
Then, as Ethan stated, it varies substantially on the customer/environment and maintenance agreement in place. The race to zero has changed our service/maintenance offerings/response over the last 15 or so years. We used to sell a service agreement with every system of any size. Now we hardly sell any. Further, we service a more rural, spread out territory of small to mid size customers. This makes it harder to give red carpet service, especially for budget conscious customers who don't have service agreements. "Oh, the 8 camera system we put in at your mini-storage, 60 miles away, 2 years ago, for $2,500.00 has a camera out? We'll try to work it in on our next trip down that way." "Oh, and yes the camera may still be under warranty, but we'll have to charge a labor charge to swap it out."
This can then easily lead to TWO service calls and a pesky RMA process with the manufacturer, possibly taking 2 weeks, (if you're lucky), UPS charges, etc. And, the invoice for the work if billed honestly for time and expense involved: 4 hours travel, 2 hours on site, 240 miles driven, etc. should be around $500+ and that's likely not going to fly, especially for a camera under warranty.
Any reason you wouldn't just send an advanced RMA Camera in that situation? Seems like the service call probably cost more than the camera.
That sounds nice but not always the case until you know the specific details of the issue. This is from an actual case that was happening yesterday when I typed that, with a few details modified for simplicity.
The actual details are that mini storage has multiple buildings, too far to home run and constructed at different times, so there are three DVR's connected via LAN and Wireless. DVR3 (wireless connection) went down. I suspected the wireless but couldn't prove it remotely. When I got there yesterday afternoon, the wireless link was indeed down, but so was the DVR and one of the three cameras connected to it. Turns out a power surge/lightning knocked out the lan ports on both the Ubiquiti and the DVR, and knocked out the camera closest to that NEMA box they were housed in. I was on site 4 hours trouble shooting and replacing/testing the down equipment.
I also recovered video footage of the event when it happened and it was a nasty storm, as well as the event logs to CYA myself when I give them the invoice.
I replaced the camera and Ubiquiti from stock I had on the van, but didn't have a spare DVR. I'm waiting on a call back from ADI to hopefully counter swap it out and go back down to re-install.
So the actual repair depending on warranty outcome will be even more than I estimated. I cringe thinking of the customer's reaction.
LOL, We have clients that have cameras down for weeks and do not know or report it. Then something happens, they have no footage and we are expected to fix the camera that day.
You have TWO 40+" TVs in your office. Did you NOT see the boxes that said lost signal?
And you still do not want to pay us to monitor the network for camera/wireless link outages?
Okie Dokie then...
One minute longer than it takes for the customer to figure out how they are paying for it. Unless it is captured in some maintenance budget or a warranty somewhere this usually takes far longer than any other aspect of the repair.
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