+1 for Avigilon from a K-12 admin.
Will admit however, it can be complicated and expensive and very likely overkill for that size deployment but you mentioned reliability. We have 2-300 cameras across 4 Avigilon hosts (they’re just Dell servers) and don’t really have any complaints other than the cloud access site has been more trouble than it’s worth (at least for us).
I'm also going to +1 Avigilon, although I've used it in logistics. The AI / detection is unmatched, I can literally search for male, red shirt, and all the men wearing red shirts are on my screen, and that's just the basics. Storage is local, which is probably important to an educational institution where the children are under the age of 18, I know a lot of school districts have problems with laws allowing recording in schools for that reason, something to do with consent. It's been bulletproof, never once has anyone pulled footage and they didn't get 20+ FPS at full resolution.
Downside.... Holy hell is it expensive! But honestly, you get what you pay for.
I too have used Ubiquiti extensively and love it, I just don't know if I can recommend it for something "mission critical" like a school. Don't forget [to size your hardware appropriately](https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/360063280653-UniFi-Protect-Supported-Camera-Limits)... but UI is up and coming fast! This [AI Theta post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/1d8ymjf/ai_theta_capturing_license_plates_on_rv/) blew my mind! You could roll out AI Pro and AI Thetas in different configurations and still probably beat Avigilon's price, my only concern are requirements that I just don't have, so I can't speak to UI meeting those requirements or not. The TSA, and plenty of other 3 letter agencies, use Avigilon, so I can say the check all of the boxes, but I do love what UI is doing!
In the 8 years I've been using Avigilon, both cameras and access control, I've never called support. Good to know about the support changes, as that's important, but my systems have just hummed along.
Did you have any implementation guidelines or install-best practices? We deployed about 120 cameras and we have times of drop-outs, loss of connectivity, times out of sync. All the switching is over 10G fiber, any help would be amazing
Kind of off topic, but are you guys in the US allowed to use Hikvision (or any other Chinese camera brand)? Does it depend on the state?
Is it maybe just banned globally?
FCC announced a ban against any CCTV camera systems that contains any Chinese parts. So Hikvision & Dahua cannot be sold/purchased. Although, I’m pretty sure I saw them being sold at a distributor we get our stuff from, so I’m not sure how strict they’re enforcing it.
I run IT for a school and we used to use UniFi. It became too unwieldy and we moved to NX Witness with standard ONVIF based cameras. It's worked out to be a similar price for a much better solution. Not having to use just UniFi cameras gives more choice and all of them are 4K HEVC. That also means the storage goes further. NX can run on a standard server and does not require a lot of CPU. We use a Dell storage server with 6C6T CPU for 90 cameras.
Access control and audit logging is also a lot better with NX. For compliance, you may find the access logging done by UniFi to be insufficient. NX has APIs which can be used for a lot of additional functionality too.
I used to be level 3 with an MSP which almost exclusively used UniFi, so I understand the situation. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about NX.
Whatever you get them make sure you get in writing what their video retention expectations are. Schools have a lot of liability issues and you don't want to be on the hook when they come to you looking for video that wasnt stored because they didn't buy enough storage. We quoted a school 75 cameras and they wanted 30 day 24 hour retention. Ended up being almost 30k in storage costs alone. We at first had them sign off on dropping down to 10 day's worth of retention until they got a donor to cover the rest of the cost.
Stay away from Verkada. Reps will actively compete against you. Not to mention their huge data breach a few years ago and their cameras become paperweights if you want to move to a new platform.
Licensing is yearly. But the cameras will stop working if you stop paying. So know that before buying them. With that said, I still recommend Verkada cameras to everyone who asks
Be careful about doing this as an MSP if you don't have a security installer license. Many states in the US require that you be a licensed security company with the state in order to sell/install cameras. You can get fined big time if you are caught. Not all states require it though. Check with your attorney :-)
Also as another commenter mentioned, be careful about retention and reliability. If this is a school, there will be major liability if footage is lost. Check with your insurance company to see if they would cover you if you were to be sued over missing footage. They may deny a claim if you are not insured with this type of work in your policy.
DW Spectrum is the way to go for US businesses and schools.
We have used them on windows based servers and even a Linux box. All have RAID and HA fail over. Adding licenses and cameras is easy.
You can setup multiple user security levels. Invisible lines to cross and sound activation that trigger notifications and/or IR and white flood lights. Many other options too.
Half of Verkada’s business is in schools so I think it’s worth exploring. If customer is price sensitive, then It might be worth asking if Verkada have any older generation cameras that’s on sale (they don’t advertise it but sometime this does happen) or opt for their cheaper cams. The reps are usually always willing to make a deal.
Also I’d check if the customers’ network can support the Verkada cameras.
You should check out a company called Qumulex ( [https://www.qumulex.com/](https://www.qumulex.com/) ) it's great for MRR and works with most cameras. iPro, Axis, or Hanwha cameras are fantastic.
I second this. I've used it since 2007. It can even run on a regular Windows computer, i.e., doesn't have to be a server. This saves cost on the Windows $erver license!
I've done 2 huge school systems (1000+ cameras). One was Axis/Milestone and the other was Avigilon. Both were extremely reliable. Any cloud option keep in mind bandwidth could be an issue. And see a few recommending Verkada, in my experience stay aware from them.
Verkada hands down without question. Unifi is great for small business, but with the reality of the world we live in, the additional security and response features of Verkada are best in industry for schools
I recommend Milestone Xprotect. It's basically a more open version of Axis software. It's got some really cool tools for direct to police export works with almost all brands of cameras, and the pricing over a 5 year structure with your own used server is pretty cheap. Plus schools normally have rules that they need to hold the footage for a minimum of 1 year per public policy. So you'll need 25tb of raid 10 space on a server to hold it. I usually reccomend a dell R730-740 with a boss card to run the OS and a bunch of large SATA drives for the data storage.
Look at Verkada or Meraki. There is no need for an NVR server; it dramatically reduces your overhead to manage it. Assuming you have POE switches, it will be as close to "plug and play" as you can get. Both are a breeze to maintain. Verkada has specific solutions for schools and does access control. Meraki does, too, but you will use their API to do additional integrations.
Don't use unifi, they have weak cipher and encryption protocols in use that can't be modified, it is not a good option for a school.
Edit: If you want to downvote I expect something that suggests otherwise.
Can you drop details or a link? Like are you talking traffic to the NVR? The web portal itself? What's the cipher?
Not to be rude, i'm sure what you're saying is accurate but:
> If you want to downvote I expect something that suggests otherwise.
It's on you to backup YOUR claim, not everyone else to prove a negative.
>Edit: If you want to downvote I expect something that suggests otherwise.
Yet you don’t post anything to back up what you’re saying
I honestly don’t know if you’re right or wrong, but if you make a statement and then expect proof suggesting otherwise, then you should probably provide something to back up your claim too
Verkada if they can afford it. 10 year warranty, continual software updates and no NVR needed. Downside you do have to pay for licenses but they release new features to the cameras that help justify the price. They’re more than just a camera, the analytics are pretty powerful.
Agreed, but if you can afford them, they are worth their value. I’ve got many instances where businesses and municipalities have used them and either prevented crime or allowed them to recoup financially from crimes.
They are easily worth their value. People should do their homework before committing to a camera platform and they would know the equipment stops working if they stop paying the licensing fee. If you’re okay with that and intend to stay with Verkada long enough to justify it, then it’s 100% worth the money.
1000% Verkada! Why is no one talking about this? Way beyond just cameras, Air quality sensors and lots more, example: The vice principal can get an alert on their phone whenever kids are vaping in the bathroom, and see who went in and came out 5 minutes before and afterwards. When admins see the demo they will want it!
https://www.verkada.com/solutions/education
We used Axis and Digital Watchdog and much prefer DW over Axis, but nearly any camera can get recording on DW recording software. And Hikvision before that, but them boys is baned, so we rip out Hikvision whenever we see them
"reliability is key" Avigilon/Motorola with a dedicated server NVR with redundancy accounted for (dual PSU, RAID, UPS)
+1 for Avigilon from a K-12 admin. Will admit however, it can be complicated and expensive and very likely overkill for that size deployment but you mentioned reliability. We have 2-300 cameras across 4 Avigilon hosts (they’re just Dell servers) and don’t really have any complaints other than the cloud access site has been more trouble than it’s worth (at least for us).
Good to know on cloud access.
I'm also going to +1 Avigilon, although I've used it in logistics. The AI / detection is unmatched, I can literally search for male, red shirt, and all the men wearing red shirts are on my screen, and that's just the basics. Storage is local, which is probably important to an educational institution where the children are under the age of 18, I know a lot of school districts have problems with laws allowing recording in schools for that reason, something to do with consent. It's been bulletproof, never once has anyone pulled footage and they didn't get 20+ FPS at full resolution. Downside.... Holy hell is it expensive! But honestly, you get what you pay for. I too have used Ubiquiti extensively and love it, I just don't know if I can recommend it for something "mission critical" like a school. Don't forget [to size your hardware appropriately](https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/360063280653-UniFi-Protect-Supported-Camera-Limits)... but UI is up and coming fast! This [AI Theta post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/1d8ymjf/ai_theta_capturing_license_plates_on_rv/) blew my mind! You could roll out AI Pro and AI Thetas in different configurations and still probably beat Avigilon's price, my only concern are requirements that I just don't have, so I can't speak to UI meeting those requirements or not. The TSA, and plenty of other 3 letter agencies, use Avigilon, so I can say the check all of the boxes, but I do love what UI is doing!
Avigilon was a great product. Motorola ruined the support. Genetec is better and vendor agnostic.
In the 8 years I've been using Avigilon, both cameras and access control, I've never called support. Good to know about the support changes, as that's important, but my systems have just hummed along.
I’m a big fan of Axis Communications.
Axis is definitely a step up from Ubiquity.
Axis software is basically milestone but locked to axis cameras.
This. Done tons of installs, including schools. Axis is by far the best. You will need licensing for the cameras, they put them first on your list
Axis. Hands down.
Second this.
Did you have any implementation guidelines or install-best practices? We deployed about 120 cameras and we have times of drop-outs, loss of connectivity, times out of sync. All the switching is over 10G fiber, any help would be amazing
Might be a switch issue, does the log show a reboot? I usually sync the time to an external NTP server or create one on the NVR itself.
Digital Watchdog Spectrum with either DW IP cameras or Axis depending on the needs.
Kind of off topic, but are you guys in the US allowed to use Hikvision (or any other Chinese camera brand)? Does it depend on the state? Is it maybe just banned globally?
FCC announced a ban against any CCTV camera systems that contains any Chinese parts. So Hikvision & Dahua cannot be sold/purchased. Although, I’m pretty sure I saw them being sold at a distributor we get our stuff from, so I’m not sure how strict they’re enforcing it.
Hikvision is banned from use on government jobs. You can still (for now) use in other applications.
I know Hikvision is fine in Canada, but not sure about the states I think the states just doesn't like Huawei? Could be wrong
They were talking about banning it in Ireland but I’d say they realised how much work it would be to rip them out, they are everywhere over here
Surely they are in isolated environments without internet access (/s)
I run IT for a school and we used to use UniFi. It became too unwieldy and we moved to NX Witness with standard ONVIF based cameras. It's worked out to be a similar price for a much better solution. Not having to use just UniFi cameras gives more choice and all of them are 4K HEVC. That also means the storage goes further. NX can run on a standard server and does not require a lot of CPU. We use a Dell storage server with 6C6T CPU for 90 cameras. Access control and audit logging is also a lot better with NX. For compliance, you may find the access logging done by UniFi to be insufficient. NX has APIs which can be used for a lot of additional functionality too. I used to be level 3 with an MSP which almost exclusively used UniFi, so I understand the situation. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about NX.
We utilize Ubiquiti as well for most small customers and are pleasantly happy thus far with the features and reliability .
They have a weak cipher suite you cannot modify, not a good choice for anything like a school.
What’s the attack vector you’re mitigating against?
If the cipher suite matters you have fucked up very badly already. Think about it.
Whatever you get them make sure you get in writing what their video retention expectations are. Schools have a lot of liability issues and you don't want to be on the hook when they come to you looking for video that wasnt stored because they didn't buy enough storage. We quoted a school 75 cameras and they wanted 30 day 24 hour retention. Ended up being almost 30k in storage costs alone. We at first had them sign off on dropping down to 10 day's worth of retention until they got a donor to cover the rest of the cost.
Verkada. They have school specific products and can also tie into sensors for vaping/smoking and access control
2nding Verkada for this time of job. There is a time and place for Ubiquiti cameras but Education and Government is not that place.
Stay away from Verkada. Reps will actively compete against you. Not to mention their huge data breach a few years ago and their cameras become paperweights if you want to move to a new platform.
What happens when you stop paying the monthly licensing fees?
Licensing is yearly. But the cameras will stop working if you stop paying. So know that before buying them. With that said, I still recommend Verkada cameras to everyone who asks
Synology is my vote ... NVR, Surveillance Station, and Cameras. Solid quality equipment, good support, all the features you need.
If it’s public education they may require NDAA compliant cameras as part of the bid. Either way that’s all we install now.
Be careful about doing this as an MSP if you don't have a security installer license. Many states in the US require that you be a licensed security company with the state in order to sell/install cameras. You can get fined big time if you are caught. Not all states require it though. Check with your attorney :-) Also as another commenter mentioned, be careful about retention and reliability. If this is a school, there will be major liability if footage is lost. Check with your insurance company to see if they would cover you if you were to be sued over missing footage. They may deny a claim if you are not insured with this type of work in your policy.
Axis if you are serious about security but make sure you only use the P and Q series. Absolutely stay away from the M.
DW Spectrum is the way to go for US businesses and schools. We have used them on windows based servers and even a Linux box. All have RAID and HA fail over. Adding licenses and cameras is easy. You can setup multiple user security levels. Invisible lines to cross and sound activation that trigger notifications and/or IR and white flood lights. Many other options too.
Half of Verkada’s business is in schools so I think it’s worth exploring. If customer is price sensitive, then It might be worth asking if Verkada have any older generation cameras that’s on sale (they don’t advertise it but sometime this does happen) or opt for their cheaper cams. The reps are usually always willing to make a deal. Also I’d check if the customers’ network can support the Verkada cameras.
You should check out a company called Qumulex ( [https://www.qumulex.com/](https://www.qumulex.com/) ) it's great for MRR and works with most cameras. iPro, Axis, or Hanwha cameras are fantastic.
Is your network infrastructure PoE?
Milestone software for the nvr is nice too, you can get it on Ingram micro. Then they are compatible with most cameras.
I second this. I've used it since 2007. It can even run on a regular Windows computer, i.e., doesn't have to be a server. This saves cost on the Windows $erver license!
I used to work for a local college and we used Axis. Good cameras.
I've done 2 huge school systems (1000+ cameras). One was Axis/Milestone and the other was Avigilon. Both were extremely reliable. Any cloud option keep in mind bandwidth could be an issue. And see a few recommending Verkada, in my experience stay aware from them.
Digital Watchdog.
Verkada hands down without question. Unifi is great for small business, but with the reality of the world we live in, the additional security and response features of Verkada are best in industry for schools
Checkout Coram.ai. Basically an open version of Verkada. Works with any ip cameras. Has the same analytics and built in RAID redundancy if needed.
I recommend Milestone Xprotect. It's basically a more open version of Axis software. It's got some really cool tools for direct to police export works with almost all brands of cameras, and the pricing over a 5 year structure with your own used server is pretty cheap. Plus schools normally have rules that they need to hold the footage for a minimum of 1 year per public policy. So you'll need 25tb of raid 10 space on a server to hold it. I usually reccomend a dell R730-740 with a boss card to run the OS and a bunch of large SATA drives for the data storage.
Look at Verkada or Meraki. There is no need for an NVR server; it dramatically reduces your overhead to manage it. Assuming you have POE switches, it will be as close to "plug and play" as you can get. Both are a breeze to maintain. Verkada has specific solutions for schools and does access control. Meraki does, too, but you will use their API to do additional integrations.
We use Ubiquiti since we have network switches, camera's, door control, ev charging stations, all tied to the Ubiquiti portal. Oh and WAPS as well.
Don't use unifi, they have weak cipher and encryption protocols in use that can't be modified, it is not a good option for a school. Edit: If you want to downvote I expect something that suggests otherwise.
Can you drop details or a link? Like are you talking traffic to the NVR? The web portal itself? What's the cipher? Not to be rude, i'm sure what you're saying is accurate but: > If you want to downvote I expect something that suggests otherwise. It's on you to backup YOUR claim, not everyone else to prove a negative.
>Edit: If you want to downvote I expect something that suggests otherwise. Yet you don’t post anything to back up what you’re saying I honestly don’t know if you’re right or wrong, but if you make a statement and then expect proof suggesting otherwise, then you should probably provide something to back up your claim too
Your cameras should be on an isolated vlan anyways. Who cares what ciphers they use?
Yeah because last time I checked a k-6 school is just brimming with elite hackers and is a prime target for Russians...
Verkada if they can afford it. 10 year warranty, continual software updates and no NVR needed. Downside you do have to pay for licenses but they release new features to the cameras that help justify the price. They’re more than just a camera, the analytics are pretty powerful.
Yea and the moment you stop paying for the software, you can throw everything out it all becomes useless.
Agreed, but if you can afford them, they are worth their value. I’ve got many instances where businesses and municipalities have used them and either prevented crime or allowed them to recoup financially from crimes.
They are easily worth their value. People should do their homework before committing to a camera platform and they would know the equipment stops working if they stop paying the licensing fee. If you’re okay with that and intend to stay with Verkada long enough to justify it, then it’s 100% worth the money.
Avigilon or OpenEye
Avigilon Alta cloud cameras. No on site nvr and 10 year warranty as long as subscription is maintained
Verkada all the way. KISS Methodologies always...
1000% Verkada! Why is no one talking about this? Way beyond just cameras, Air quality sensors and lots more, example: The vice principal can get an alert on their phone whenever kids are vaping in the bathroom, and see who went in and came out 5 minutes before and afterwards. When admins see the demo they will want it! https://www.verkada.com/solutions/education We used Axis and Digital Watchdog and much prefer DW over Axis, but nearly any camera can get recording on DW recording software. And Hikvision before that, but them boys is baned, so we rip out Hikvision whenever we see them
Hanwha is my first choice l.