One of the most important aspects of any product today, especially for IP video technology, is the ability to support an open architecture. This can be interpreted in different ways and therefore should be evaluated individually within the following categories: supported devices, hardware platform, operating system (OS) platform, storage, and clients.

The rule-of-thumb in today’s modern world is that no two networks are alike. Most IT professionals responsible for their network infrastructure have adopted a heterogeneous network in order to integrate with many types of products. The ability to easily integrate into any TCP/IP network along with accessibility via an IP address are key requirements for any product.

Nearly all companies today use the server-client architecture as their standard network topology. An IP video solution should follow that same method to ensure product acceptance by the IT department.

Most companies use some sort of licensing schema to ensure that their products are not being illegally used or pirated. The licensing model should also include a level of flexibility for both consumer and manufacturer. The license model most commonly used today requires a license key.

IP video solutions must be able to easily scale up or down to adapt to the ever changing needs of a company (e.g. number of cameras, amount of storage, etc.).

In the event of a power failure or a loss of network communication, it is essential that the IP solution includes cost-effective and flexible fail-over capabilities to ensure critical video is not lost.

The ability to recover from any system failure is another key aspect to any IP system. With or without a fail-over system, the IT and physical security departments are responsible for the system recovery. Generally, the IT department must rebuild the server and then pass it over to the security department to reconfigure it.