Consider my situation an enterprise/campus/federated or larger system. All cameras and related storage [servers, DVRs, etc] are setup on a video VLAN. I am told we can use as much bandwidth as we want--unlimited. If there seems to be a limit, let the network/IT know and they will figure out how to make the pipe bigger.
Current status is the video storage is a hodge-podge of various units and VMS and located in various buildings all over campus [100+].
Specific cameras are viewed at various office [100+]locations all over on campus and off campus sites, mainly by the facility/building managers, security officers, campus dispatch, and myself for maintaining cameras and systems. We might have a total of 100 to 200 viewers [clients], but by all means they do not view their own specific cameras all the time -- who knows really other than myself and dispatch who views regularly. The most anyone client might have access to view is 40 cameras and do they?..doubtful. Most video viewed is after the fact.
We are transisitioning to centralized system. Most all video will be sent and stored at centralized data center. The platform of choice is Genetec.
Now the multicast query -- I am told it is best to setup my cameras to multicast oppose to unicast. But my understanding too is I need, not only the cameras, VMS configured, but our network/router/IT people to also configure the switch ports to be multicast. The network/router/IT people say this is unnecessary because we can have as much bandwidth as we want [we are on a separate video vlan]. I don't have a good understanding to tell them otherwise. They say if we need more bandwidth -- let them know--they'll give it to us [and they do have big pipes]. They say they hesitate using multicast because of the potential havoc it can create on their network.
The question is -- is multicast any better to have if we can have all the bandwidth we want? Are there still limitations? What would the limitations look like? How do I explain that multicast is a good thing for our video system to the network/router/IT people so they understand. How do they avoid the multicast havoc..or is that just urban tales?
**apologies this is long--but when I tried to edit out items --they seemed important enough for clarity, so I kept all information here**
Thank you!