Aimetis Symphony. User Guide. Video Management & Analytics Software. July 2009 Symphony v6.2. Last Reviewed: Product Version: Powered by Vision TM

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Powered by VisionTM |

User Guide

Last Reviewed:

Product Version:

Video Management & Analytics Software

July 2009

Symphony v6.2

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either express or implied, in this document. Information in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, is subject to change without notice. The entire risk of the use or the results of the use of this document remains with the user. Unless otherwise noted, organizations, products, domain names, e mail addresses, and logos depicted herein are fictitious. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Aimetis Corporation.

Aimetis may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Aimetis, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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Welcome to Aimetis Symphony v6.2

The Industry Standard in video management & analytics

If you just installed Aimetis Symphony, please take the time to go through Symphony Setup. Symphony help is accessible from any dialog within Symphony Client by hitting F1. The appropriate help page will load.

If you are looking for help beyond this documentation, please try one of the following. http://www.aimetis.com (Aimetis home page).

https://www.aimetis.com/xnet/downloads.aspx (Aimetis download page) http://www.aimetis.com/support (Aimetis support page)

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Welcome to Symphony

What is Symphony

Aimetis Symphony is an advanced video management software product with integrated video analysis. Symphony simultaneously enables digital video recording, intelligent video analysis and remote access to live and recorded images from any networked computer. Symphony analyzes incoming video against user-defined policies and initiates counter measures when an event violates a Rule. By using

Symphony’s advanced business intelligence reporting and query tools, users can quickly access information or locate specific video in seconds, saving hours of forensic work. Sample content analysis applications include:

• perimeter breach protection • virtual fence • object stolen/left-behind • flow control • people/vehicle counting • vehicle starting/stopping/moving • camera obstruction

Symphony is a software package installable on any PC running Windows XP or higher. Symphony runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and supports CCTV (via capture card), network, mega-pixel and dome cameras. Symphony can support video streams of MJPEG, MPEG-4 and H.264. Aimetis software is managing thousands of cameras globally in various industries, including

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Understanding Symphony Licensing

Symphony is a software product which is licensed to end users on a PER CAMERA basis. For every camera you connect to Symphony, you require a valid license. There are 3 different camera licenses available with Symphony, and all versions can be installed on the same physical computer. For example, you may connect 16 cameras to a PC, and 10 cameras each have a valid Standard License, 2 cameras each have their own Professional License, and 4 cameras each have their own Enterprise License. Symphony Client is client software that enables users to connect to Symphony Server and view cameras. It is licensed free of charge. Symphony Client can connect to multiple Symphony Servers simultaneously, where each server is connected to multiple cameras. No extra license fee is required to run Symphony Client.

Symphony Player is client software that enables users to play back .aira video files, created by Symphony Server. No license fee is required to use Symphony Player.

See Also

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Symphony Server Licensing

Aimetis Symphony is licensed on a per camera basis. Each physical computer can have multiple

Symphony software licenses. The license types are: Standard, Professional and Enterprise. No server or client license fees apply.

• Symphony Server Standard License contains all the core video management features such as video recording from network and analog devices, video playback, multi-site capability, integrated PTZ control and an integrated sitemap for easy navigation.

• Symphony Server Professional License contains all the core features of the Standard License plus intelligent video analysis used for the Timeline feature. This enables quick and efficient retrieval of specific events which occurred in the past without having to manually review all video.

• Symphony Server Enterprise License is designed to meet the needs of organizations that require real-time intelligence on their camera feeds with enhanced event based search capabilities. With an Enterprise License running against a camera, objects in the scene under surveillance are tracked and classified and real-time information is presented to you as it happens. PTZ cameras can also be automatically controlled via the software.

Licenses can be mixed per physical server, allowing Standard, Pro, and Enterprise to be used per single server.

Free Client Software

Symphony Client (SC): Unlimited installs of the feature-rich client application which enables you to receive live video, conduct intelligent searches, control PTZ cameras and offers complete administration capability of Symphony Server. Note that for some features to be enabled, the appropriate server side camera license must be purchased.

Symphony Player: Enables video playback of exported .aira files. Symphony Player is used to play exported .aira files as well as fast forwarding, rewinding, and toggling video overlays on and off on the fly.

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Installation and Activation

Pre-installation Planning

Planning your Symphony Server installation before actually performing it is absolutely critical. Depending on the size of your camera deployment, geographic considerations, and integration with other systems, different Symphony configurations would be recommended. These all impact network and hardware specifications, standalone versus Server Farm configurations and other factors.

Aimetis Xnet Account Before installing the Symphony server, you are required to have a valid Aimetis

Xnet account. During installation of the software you will be prompted for your Xnet login credentials, so that Symphony can download and install the appropriate license automatically. For more information on the Xnet, visit http://www.aimetis.com/xnet/help.aspx.

Hardware and Network Requirements Prior to installing Symphony Server, it is important to properly

assess hardware requirements to meet the needs of your organization's deployment plan. An

organization with a single location and 10 cameras will have different requirements than an organization with multiple locations and over 1000 cameras. For help on calculating hardware requirements, consult the Aimetis Hardware Calculator at http://www.aimetis.com/dlbin/tools/hardwarecalculator.xls.

Multi-Server deployments A server farm is a collection of computer servers used to accomplish server

needs beyond the capability of one machine. Server farms often have backup (redundant) servers, which can take over the function of primary servers in the event of a primary server failure. Aimetis Symphony takes advantage of server farms by distributing the workload of camera processing across several servers. Symphony also supports server farm redundancy by failing over camera processing from a 'down' server to a 'redundant' server. With Symphony all live and redundant servers are homogeneous in that they all run the same software services and can potentially run the processing of any camera. To learn more about Server farms, visit Server Farms.

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Symphony Installation and Data Folders

Symphony Server

Symphony server stores three kinds of data to your hard disk. 1. binary files

2. video data

3. configuration information which is stored in a SQL Server Express Database.

Symphony is installed by default in C:\Program Files\Aimetis\Symphony\. The default path for all data (log files, video, etc) is C:\Program Files\Aimetis\Symphony\data\.

Both the default installation path and default data path can be changed during installation of Symphony. Below is a summary of key folders (<AppRoot> denotes installation path while <DataRoot> denotes data path):

<AppRoot>\_bin Binaries for all of our executables and DLLs. <AppRoot>\_docs small .txt files storing alarm instructions and

Aimetis.com's IP address.

<AppRoot>\_tools contains useful tools and utilities that Aimetis Support Specialists use to diagnose system

problems

<AppRoot>\WebRoot the web files & binaries.

<DataRoot>\_footagearchive the video data recorded from all cameras. <DataRoot>\_images contains a cache of JPEG images generated from

the footage

<DataRoot>\_logs2 all server log files useful for debugging and diagnosing problems. For more information, visit section on Detailed Logs.

<DataRoot>\_searches Location of stored searches. These files will not be automatically cleaned and searches must be manually deleted by user.

<DataRoot>\_signals The timeline data (green, yellow, red) <DataRoot>\_signals2 XML metadata for searches and reports. \windows\temp\config_backup\ Location for automatic backups of server

configuration.

In addition to the above folders, Symphony server adds the following registry keys: HKLM\Software\Aimetis

This is the installation path and licensing information.

It is highly recommended that the <DataRoot> folders are not on the same physical Hard Disk as Windows and <AppRoot>. This is to limit the amount of disk read and writes to the OS disk to prevent catastrophic failure.

Symphony Client

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Below is a summary of key folders: C:\Documents and

Settings\%WINUSER%\Application Data\Aimetis\

All client configuration, such as window layouts, general configuration, logs.

RegisteredFarms.xml & FarmList.xml These files define the farms that have been registered. The default is whatever the client configuration path is set to but you can override this.

These above paths can be configured via the Symphony Client Settings dialog (View->Settings). There are two (optional) variables that can be used in the path names:

1. %WINUSER% represents the Windows username of the current user. This is used in the default path so Symphony can store the configuration in the current user’s application data folder. 2. %SYMPHONYUSER% represents the Symphony username. This is only valid if credentials are

required for login to Symphony.

If it is desired to customer prefers to keep these settings global, do not use either of these variables when specifying the paths.

In addition to the above folders, Symphony Client adds the following registry keys: HKLM\Software\Aimetis\AiraExplorer

See Also

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Server Farms

About Server Farms

A Server Farm is a collection of computer servers used to accomplish server needs beyond the capability of one machine. Server farms often have backup (redundant) servers, which can take over the function of primary servers in the event of a primary server failure.

Aimetis Symphony takes advantage of server farms by distributing the workload of camera processing across several servers. Symphony also supports server farm redundancy by failing over camera processing from a 'down' server to a 'redundant' server.

With Symphony all live and redundant servers are homogeneous in that they all run the same software services and can potentially run the processing of any camera.

See Also

Creating a Server Farm Server Farms

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Creating a Server Farm

There are 2 ways to create a server farm. The first is done at installation time, and the second is done by merging existing farms into a single farm. To learn about merging farms, visit the Server Farm section.

Creating a Farm at Installation Time

The following steps will create a multi-server farm from scratch (during installation). For more installation details please refer to Symphony Server – Installation Guide.

1. Choose the appropriate situation for your installation and proceed to the corresponding steps: a. The configuration database will reside on one of the Symphony servers. Go to Step 2.

b. The configuration database will reside on a dedicated external SQL server. Go to Step 5.

2. Choose which server will run the configuration database. Install Symphony on that server first. During installation select the default option for Database Configuration "New Local Database".

3. Enable Remote SQL Connections on this Symphony server (Appendix C of Symphony Server – Installation Guide).

4. Go to Step 7.

5. Install SQL server 2005 or later on the computer that will be the dedicated external configuration database server.

6. Enable Remote SQL Connections on this external server (Appendix C of Symphony Server – Installation Guide).

7. During installation of (subsequent) Symphony servers, we need to point them all to the existing configuration database. Do this by selecting the option for Database Configuration "Existing Database".

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Installing Symphony Server

For help on installing Symphony for the first time, visit Symphony Server – Installation Guide.

After installation has completed, it is required to setup the following, at a minimum, in order for Symphony to function properly.

1. Device Setup 2. User Access 3. Rules

The remaining steps (shown below) do not have to be performed but are recommended: Customize Camera Tree - configure a custom camera tree for easier navigation

Customize Site Map - enter the map that appears in the top right corner of the Main Console. Post Installation Steps - miscellaneous steps after Symphony is installed.

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Installing Symphony Client

Aimetis Symphony comes standard with client software, called Symphony Client. Symphony Client is installed by default when Symphony Server is installed. Symphony Client is used to configure all settings within Symphony Server, provided the user has sufficient rights (for more information on user access, visit Configuring User Access). However, it is not recommended that Symphony Client be used to constantly stream live video on the server PC itself. Symphony Client may consume significant CPU or other resources on the PC while displaying live video. This CPU utilization would therefore be unavailable for the server software to perform its functions. It is recommended that you install the client software on other PCs on the network for configuration and live video streaming.

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Installing Symphony Player

Symphony Player is installed automatically whenever Symphony Client is installed. Symphony Player is required to play back .aira files. If required, a separate installation package is also available for Symphony Player from https://www.aimetis.com/xnet/downloads.aspx.

To install Symphony Player separately

1. Close any Aimetis applications that are open 2. Download the Symphony Player installation file

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Post-Installation

Post Installation steps

Post-installation steps involve finishing the configuration of your Symphony Server, and changing settings in the operating system. These steps are not mandatory in order for your server to function properly, but are recommended by Aimetis.

• Firewalling your server • Configuring your mail server

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Firewalling Symphony

Default Ports

Firewalling your server is a good way to reduce the chances of someone hacking in and damaging your system. To firewall your system:

1. From Control Panel, double click on the Network Connections icon 2. Right-click on your internet connection and select properties 3. Select the Advanced tab

4. Check the "Protect my computer" checkbox 5. Click the Settings button

6. Make sure none of the check boxes in the Services tab are checked.

7. Add a new service entry for every TCP port which you want to allow through. Do this by clicking on the Add... button and filling in the dialog box. Make sure you enter the name of your computer in the Name box, and you can leave the Internal Port number box empty. By default, Symphony uses the following ports:

1. 50000 WS1 2. 50001 WS2 3. 50002 IntelSend 4. 50010 camera1 live 5. 50012 camera1 historical 6. 50020 camera2 live 7. 50022 camera2 historical 8. 50030 camera3 live 9. 50032 camera3 historical

The port list above assumes you are publishing 3 cameras on the Symphony server PC behind the firewall. If you are publishing more cameras on the PC, continue opening ports similar to those above. If Video Wall functionality is being used, the client PC will require port 50005 to be open.

Publishing Symphony on non-standard port

By default, Symphony servers will use port 50000 as the default web port. However in some cases the default port may need to be changed. For example, if multiple servers are being published on the same external IP address, the default ports of the subsequent server(s) need to be changed. By changing the BasePort (web port) it will automatically change the other ports as well. To change the default ports, perform the following:

1. From Symphony Client, click on Server > Configuration > Manual Configuration Editor.

2. Enter the following information: 3. Type = Server

4. Section = Main

5. ID = (enter your Server ID) 6. Key = BasePort?

7. Value = (enter your new default web port)

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Configuring your Mail Server

Configuring your mail server allows your Symphony server to send email notifications when events happen. Symphony may send emails as a result of Rule (Action) configuration or Subscriptions.

Symphony will relay email via an email server defined in the Subscriptions page. Using Internal SMTP Server

The easiest approach is to allow Symphony server to relay email through itself using Microsoft SMPT server.

1. From Control Panel, double click on the "Administrative Tools" icon.

2. Double click on the "Internet Information Services" icon (if this is not installed, go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and select Add/Remove Windows Components and scroll to Internet Information Services, click Details, and add SMTP service)

3. Expand the tree by clicking on the + icon.

4. Right click on "Default SMTP Virtual Server" and select Start if it is enabled. 5. Right click on "Default SMTP Virtual Server" and select Properties.

6. Select the Access tab. 7. Click the Connection button.

8. Select the "Only the list below" radio button. 9. Click the Add button.

10. Select the "Single computer" radio button and enter 127.0.0.1 as the IP address. 11. Click OK to close the "Computer" dialog box.

12. Click OK to close the "Connection" dialog box 13. Click the Relay... button.

14. Select the "Only the list below" radio button. 15. Click the Add button.

16. Select the "Single computer" radio button and enter 127.0.0.1 as the IP address. 17. Click OK to close the "Computer" dialog box.

18. UNCHECK the "Allow all computers that successfully authenticate to relay" check box. 19. Click OK to close the "Relay Restrictions" dialog box.

Using External SMTP Server

If an external SMTP server is used for Symphony email relaying, specify this address in the Subscriptions

SMTP field. Please note the connection to the SMTP service is “un-authenticated”, so make sure that the

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Administration

Server Configuration

Configuring User Access

User access can be configured in two ways. The default method is to add users into Symphony manually, where the users will be stored in the Aimetis Symphony SQL database. The second way is to integrate Microsoft Windows Active Directory users with Symphony.

To access the User configuration dialog, select Server > Configuration and select the Users pane.

To add users directly into Symphony

1. To add a new user click the New button. The New User dialog appears.

2. Select a default security role from the Select User Type fields, or select Custom Restriction User and Advanced to configure a customized user access level.

Here you can define what rights to assign to the current user. The table below summarizes the options.

Can add/remove

devices allows users to add or delete a Device Can change rules allows the users to modify Rule settings Can change

services allows the user to alter Services Can change

settings allows the user to change configuration settings Can change

subscriptions allows the user to alter Subscriptions settings Can change users allows the user to alter another user's settings Can connect using

Symphony Client allows the user to run Symphony Client Can control

pan-tilt-zoom cameras allows the user to control PTZ cameras Can delete video

and searches allows the user to delete archived video and Search results

Can disable alarms allows the user to disable alarms so that other users do not get them Can export video allows user to export video from Symphony

Can get audit logs allows the user to view logs, such as the View Logins or View Detailed Logs form

Can get information allows the user to connect with Symphony Client and get the camera list Can mark alarms allows the user to mark alarms

Can perform

searches allows the user to perform a Search Can update server

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Can use audio allows the user to use audio from the Alarm Console Can view historical

data allows the user to play back recorded video

3. After selecting the user type, click the User information tab to enter personalized user information. The Priority field is used if two users wish to control a PTZ camera at the same time, the higher

priority user will gain control of the PTZ camera.

4. After defining the user information, click the Cameras tab. Select which cameras should be

accessible to the user. If the user does not have access to a specific camera, it will not be displayed on the site map.

5. Hit OK to save settings for the new user. To use Active Directory users with Symphony

Perform the following to use Active Directory integration for user access:

1. Ensure at least 1 camera is configured with Symphony and the AI Tracker service is started 2. Login to Windows as a domain administrator

3. From Symphony Client, open Server Configuration > Users, change the user model to Active Directory. You might have to specify an address.

4. Stop all services including InfoService (open command prompt and type "killall 9" and hit enter) 5. Re-configure all services to login as a domain user account, so they have access to AD. This

user may need to be a domain administrator.

6. Start all Symphony services (from the command prompt, type "killall 5" and hit enter)

7. Make sure all services started (you may have entered the wrong password in step 5, or the user specified might not have permissions to log on as a service. If it is the latter, configure one service manually in Services.msc and it will notify you its adding the permission)

8. Open Symphony Client.

9. Re-register the server using the domain user. You might need to specify the domain (i.e. Aimetis.com\user or [email protected])

10. Test the system to verify Active Directory integration is working.

Note: When a new user logs into Symphony Client, if authentication succeeds on the Active Directory server, a new user will automatically be added for them in the Symphony Server's User table with permissions copied from the DEFAULT_USER. Hence, if by default you do not want all users on your domain to have access to the Symphony Server, remove all permissions from the DEFAULT_USER.

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Device Setup

Three kinds of device types can be added to Symphony Server. 1. Network (IP) cameras or video servers

2. Analog cameras (connected using either Winnov Videum 4400 VO or Eltronix MP3000) 3. External I/O Modules

Visit http://aimetis.com/Support/supported-video-devices.aspx for a list of supported devices.

To add or modify devices, click Server > Configuration. The Configuration dialog appears with the Devices pane by default. Adding and modifying cameras (and configuring their respective video analytic engines) is explained below, as well as adding I/O Modules to Symphony.

Adding Network Cameras or Video Servers

1. To add a new network camera or video server, click New from the Devices pane. The device

configuration interface opens.

On the Network tab, enter the Name you wish to call the camera, URL which is normally the IP Address, Username and Password and click Connect to Camera to detect the camera type and settings. The

model, resolution, Record FPS and Video Format will be auto-detected. If you wish to manually add the camera, do not click Connect to Camera but instead manually select the Manufacturer, Camera Type

and set the Resolution, Record FPS and Video Format appropriately. You may also click Discover Devices to locate devices on the network. The Movability option specifies whether the device will

automatically move to a redundant server under a failover condition. If it is set to movable then this

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can't be moved. Any device that requires access to resources only available on a single server (i.e. COM port, special SDK or drivers, etc) is unmovable. All others are typically movable.

For more information on Movability and Redundancy, visit Server Farms.

2. Next, click on the Video tab to configure advanced features of the camera.

The Recording section is where video recording is configured and where the Symphony Codec can be

enabled. Enabling the Symphony Codec could be useful in cases where the network camera only records MJPEG video and Symphony is to recompress the video as MPEG-4. The Record Video combo box allows users to specify when Symphony should record video on the specific camera. Options available are:

Always: Symphony will also record video for this specific camera Schedule: will record video on the schedule specified by the user Schedule &

Tracked Motion: will record video on motion but only during the time period specified by the user Pixel Changes: video is recorded whenever pixel changes are detected (a tree moving in heavy wind could cause pixel changes and therefore cause Symphony to record video)

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Tracked Motion: video is recorded if objects are tracked through the scene (normally a person or vehicle moving through the scene is tracked as motion, but moving tree branches should not be tracked and therefore video would not be recorded)

Motion on

Camera: video is recorded using motion detection capabilities inside network camera itself, not using a video analytic engine from Symphony (quality of motion detection similar to Pixel Changes)

Schedule & Motion on Camera:

Same as Motion on Camera option, however recording will occur if motion is detected during a specific time interval as defined by user.

Never: video is not recorded, unless specified to be recorded in a Rule (Action).

If the network device allows, additional network video streams can be added from the same physical device. This is useful in the situation where one level of quality of video is defined for recording and another for live video, for example. To add another video stream for the current network device, click Add a new Stream. The video recording options available are the same as to what was defined by the default

stream. Further, video resolution can also be defined independently for the additional stream(s).

The picture can be rotated by modifying the Rotate Degrees combo box, as well as defining how long a

PTZ camera should remain in its current position before it returns to its Home Position after a user moves it by modifying the Maximum Locked Minutes value. The Maximum Locked Minutes value therefore only

pertains to PTZ cameras, not fixed cameras.

Finally, the Panoramic Settings section allows users to configure settings related to 360-degree camera

lenses. Currently Immervision and IPIX 360-degree camera lens technology is supported. By enabling panoramic technology and selecting the appropriate camera type, users can de-warp 360-degree video in Symphony Client.

3. By selecting the Analytics Engines tab, the individual video engines can be added to the camera. An Enterprise license is required to enable video engines in the Analytics Engines tab. This step is only necessary if video analytics are to be configured on this camera.

The default engine is the VE250. Different video (analytic) engines detect different events. When configuring Rules, the type of analysis available or "Event" is determined by which engine is selected here. Not all analytic engines can be run in parallel. By selecting the VE250 for example, it will disable other similar engines (such as VE150 or VE160). If an engine you wish to enable is disabled, try disabling other engines to allow the selection of the desired engine.

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For information on how to configure and select the video analytic engines, refer to the Video Analytics

section. For information on licensing, consult the Licensing section.

4. Click Apply to save your settings and move onto the Analytics Configuration tab, or click OK to save

settings and close the dialog without configuring the selected video analytics engines (default

configuration settings will be used). For details on the Analytics Configuration tab for each video analytic engine, refer to the Video Analytics section.

Cameras can be imported using the Import Cameras function. Adding and Configuring Analog Cameras

Analog cameras can be connected to Symphony in two ways. The simplest way is to use a video server (a network device that converts analog video to digital video). In this scenario, Symphony connects to the video server the same way it connects to a network camera, therefore follow the steps above. To add an analog camera directly to Symphony, a capture card must be installed in the server itself (make sure the capture card is supported by Symphony). Next, click on the Devices tab to load the devices window (shown below) and select the down arrow by the New button to select Add An Analog Camera.

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On the Analog tab, you can modify basic configuration for the camera.

Device This combo box allows you to select the available channel on the capture card. Name Enter the name of the camera here (for example, Lobby Camera)

Resolution Configure the resolution of the camera

FPS Configure the frames per second to record video Video

Format Configure the video format, such as MJPEG or MPEG-4

PTZ Camera Select this if the channel selected in the Device field is connected to an analog PTZ

camera. If a PTZ camera is connected to this channel, additional information such as the Type (which denotes the type of analog PTZ camera), Camera Address (which

denotes which address the PTZ camera is configured), and Control Port (which

denotes which COM port the serial adapter used to send and receive control signals to camera is connected) must also be configured.

Next, configure the Video pane and Analytics pane as described in step 2 and 3 above.

Adding and Configuring I/O Devices

Click the arrow beside the New button and select Add a Hardware Device. The Hardware Device tab

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In the Name field, enter a name you wish to use for this device. In the Type field, select the device that is

to be configured. The recommended device is the Advantech (Adam) 6060. If it is an I/O device that is connected to the serial connection of the server, the COM Port address and Baud Rate must be properly configured. If an IP-based I/O device is configured, enter the IP address of the device and other required information. Movability field defines whether the device can be automatically moved to another server in case of failure. For more information, visit the Server Farm section.

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Camera Tree

The Camera Tree is the default method of navigating between cameras. By default, all cameras are listed in order of camera ID. Each camera has a unique ID and is set automatically by the system as cameras are added. If the camera tree is not visible, from Symphony Client click View > Camera Tree.

The Camera Tree can be docked to the Main Console, or undocked and put to any monitor. To customize the Camera Tree, click Design.

The Camera Tree Configuration interface opens.

Usage

Drag cameras to

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Show Default

Tree Will display the default tree instead of the custom tree in the Main Console Show Device

Icons This will enable or disable device icons in the tree Show Device

Numbers Will enable or disable camera IDs Add Will add a folder to the camera tree

Delete Delete the current select object, either a camera or folder

Arrows The green arrows can be used to move objects up or down, and move them left or right within the tree structure

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Map Configuration

Aimetis Symphony allows you to upload an image (jpg, gif or bmp file) to be used as a map for your server. If the Map is not visible in the Main Console, click View > Map Navigation.

Uploading a Map

To customize or change the Map, click Design and Edit Maps.

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In order to customize the Map, follow these steps:

1. To over-write the default map, select the map and click the Select Image. Alternatively, right-click

the map name and click Select Image.

2. Browse for the image file you wish to use for the new map (jpg, gif or bmp).

3. After you have finished uploading a new map, drag your cameras to the map to place them on the map. No cameras are added to the map by default.

4. Right click on a camera and select Rotate Map Icons to position the camera angles as required.

5. Click OK to save settings.

Creating Map Hotspots (optional)

In larger sites where you wish to have more than one site map, you can layer site maps by making them hyperlinked by creating hotspots on the map. In order to do this, upload your main map using the steps outlined above and perform the following additional steps:

1. Make sure you have at least added two maps using the steps above. Place the cameras to the appropriate map using the steps above.

2. Click the Design button and select Create Map Link. The Create Map Link dialog appears

3. Click on the Map Link pane on the left to create a hotspot. When users click on this hotspot, it will load the map on the right pane.

4. Select the colour or transparency of the hotspot and hit apply.

5. Finally, select if you wish to link to another map on the current server, or to a map on a different server. It may be useful to link to a current map on the server if you have many cameras and the main (default) site map does not show enough detail. In this example, by creating a hotspot over the parking area, we can create a blown up image of the parking area for more detail.

See Also

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Storage

Aimetis Symphony allows you to customize where video is stored, how much storage to use, and when video should be deleted. To perform these operations, click Server > Configuration. Using the tree view at the left, select the Storage pane.

Disk Usage Limits

Minimum Disk

Space Allows you to specify the minimum amount of free disk space on the hard disk. Symphony will start deleting video as soon as free disk space is below this setting.

Minimum Disk

Percentage Allows you to specify a percentage of free disk space to maintain.

Footage Storage

Limit the number of days video is stored

In certain situations, there may be disk space available to record more video, but you may wish to artificially have the video removed. This may be the case in certain jurisdictions where there is a legal requirement to delete video after a certain time.

Default max

storage days If the Limit the number of days video is stored option is enabled, this value specifies the default value in days when video is over written, even if extra hard disk space exists. Alternatively, by adjusting the Max Storage Days value per camera, per camera settings can be controlled which supersede the global setting defined here.

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longer reporting capability. Default

metadata storage days

Defines how long metadata will be stored.

Default path This is the default path video will be recorded, as defined when Symphony was installed. By adjusting the Storage Path value inside the camera grid, individual camera storage paths can be defined.

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Server Farms

A Server Farm is a collection of computer servers used to accomplish server needs beyond the capability of one machine. Server farms often have backup (redundant) servers, which can take over the function of primary servers in the event of a primary server failure.

To manage your Farm, click Server > Configuration. The Configuration dialog appears. Click

Server Farm.

Master

At all times one of the servers is considered to be the 'Master'. The Master takes on the slight additional task of controlling the operations of a failover. If the Master happens to be the 'down' server, another master is quickly voted in to take over the failed master's duties.

Redundancy

A redundant server is a server currently running 0 cameras. Upon detecting a server as being 'down', a redundant server is used to replace the 'down' server's camera and device processing in its entirety. Meaning, all cameras will be moved and run on the redundant server. Video loss will be a little as 15 seconds. To enable redundancy:

1. there must be at least 1 redundant server available at all times (one with 0 cameras).

2. the redundant server must be in the same Redundancy Group as the potential 'down' server. 3. redundancy must be turned 'On' for that Redundancy Group.

The following figures come from Symphony Client / Server Configuration / Server Farm tab.

Figure 1: All three servers in the same Redundancy Group "1"

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Figure 2: Different Redundancy Groups "1" and "7"

If the first server (Redundancy Group 7) fails, no failover will occur, as there is no Redundant server in Group 7.

Figure 3: Typical Symphony Server Farm

This configuration depicts use of an external database cluster for configuration data redundancy, and a NAS or SAN for historical footage file access after failover

Figure 4: Multi-server Farm with configuration database existing on one of the Symphony Servers

If server redundancy is a requirement, this is not a recommended setup, since it involves a single point of failure, namely Server 1. If this server fails, configuration is not accessible by the remaining servers.

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Figure 5: Multi-server Farm without a SAN or NAS for footage data

This is not recommended, since after failover, the historical footage data prior to the failover time for cameras 1,2 and 3 will not be accessible by Server 2. It will only be accessible by an Aimetis Technician.

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Redundancy Groups

Due to geographical constraints for file storage, it may be necessary for certain servers to only failover to certain other servers. A redundancy group allows you to group your servers such that failover only happens amongst servers within the same group. Therefore ensure that there is at least 1 redundant server within each server group.

Failover

A 'down' server is detected within 30 seconds, but can be configured for any time threshold. Windows updates or other maintenance that cause a reboot may be reason to increase this threshold to several minutes. To configure this threshold see the section Redundancy Configuration Settings.

Failover will transfer all the camera processes from running on the 'down' server to running on a

'redundant' server. It will transfer only cameras that are 'movable' according to the camera configuration: Server Configuration / Devices / <server> / <camera> / Network tab / Movability setting.

Some devices are not movable by nature (USB devices, or analog cameras plugged into a video card on the 'down' server for example).

When a 'down' server becomes back 'up', if its cameras have been failed over to another server, it will now be considered a redundant server, since it has no cameras.

Buddy System

Within a Redundancy Group there is a buddy neighbor system where each server monitors the health of its neighbors (or 'buddies'). Each server broadcasts an 'Alive' status every second to each of its buddy servers, and each server listens for 'Alive' messages from other neighbors. It is a connected graph of neighbors such that if more than one server is 'down' there will always be someone to detect them. Each server runs a monitoring thread that receives UDP socket messages from each of its buddies. If the detection threshold time expires without receiving an 'Alive' message from a particular buddy, then that server may be 'down'. A 'possible down server' message is sent to the Master server. If more than 1/2 of the buddies notify the Master of this 'down' server, it is confirmed to be 'down'. In this case a failover camera swapping algorithm takes place to transfer all the 'down' server's camera processing to a redundant server if one is available.

Storage

Each server will be writing its footage and files to one of the following: 1. a data folder on the server itself

2. a logical drive on a SAN 3. a logical drive on a NAS.

If method 1 is applied, the footage files for a given camera will exist on the original server up until the failover swap, from which point they will be created on the redundant server.

If method 2 or 3 is applied, the footage files for a given camera will never move. When a failover swap happens, the new server will just point to the data of the 'down' server's logical drive on the SAN or NAS.

Aimetis recommends a NAS in cases where fail-over is required. Configuration Database

All configuration settings for an entire farm are stored in a single SQL database. For this reason it is recommended that the database reside on a reliable server in the farm, or better yet on a separate

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dedicated database server set up with its own redundancy system (such as a Microsoft Windows cluster). Without such luxury, if the Symphony server that contains the database fails, the entire farm will no longer be able to make any configuration changes, nor will stopped trackers be able to restart.

All Symphony servers in a farm must be granted access to the centralized configuration database. To enable remote access to the SQL server please follow Appendix C of Symphony Server – Installation Guide.

Symphony Client

The client application can register (connect to) any server in a farm. In this respect the farm is 'headless'. Upon failover, if the client's registered server is the one that failed, one of the servers will notify the clients that a server is 'down' and the registration will automatically switch to an 'up' server to take future

requests.

Redundancy Configuration Settings

The following are the configurable farm redundancy settings.

Setting Description

FarmHealthStartDelayMs On server startup, it will delay by this amount before starting to monitor for one of its buddies being down.

FarmHealthSockTimeoutMs UDP sockets are used to receive 'Alive' messages from all buddies. Each receive will have this timeout. (You shouldn’t have to change this).

FarmHealthMissedUdpMs The amount of time in milliseconds a server can be down before it is determined 'down' and failover is performed. Some customers may want this to be several minutes to allow a windows update reboot to perform).

FarmHealthUdpPort Only change this if failover is not working at all and the is* log files indicate there are port conflicts.

These settings are NOT in the database by default, so if you want to add them use the following lines. The last parameter is the default used.

dbupdater "insert into Settings (Type,ID,Section,K,V) values ('Global','','Main','FarmHealthStartDelayMs', '5000')" dbupdater "insert into Settings (Type,ID,Section,K,V) values ('Global','','Main','FarmHealthSockTimeoutMs', '1500')" dbupdater "insert into Settings (Type,ID,Section,K,V) values ('Global','','Main','FarmHealthMissedUdpMs', '30000')" dbupdater "insert into Settings (Type,ID,Section,K,V) values ('Global','','Main','FarmHealthUdpPort', '55439')"

Creating a Farm from Multiple Existing Farms

The following steps will create a multi-server farm from 2 or more existing farms. 1. If upgrading servers, save configuration settings for each server.

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3. Ensure all servers are installed as or upgraded to the same version of Symphony (6.2 or later). 4. Save configuration settings for each server.

5. On all servers enable SQL remote access. For help, visit

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;914277 6. Choose 1 server to be the master, let's call him server A.

7. On the Aimetis XNET web account, select the Servers link from the left panel. a. Click on server A's ID to bring up the Server Settings page.

b. The ID for server A will now be considered the Farm Id. All other servers' and their Id's will become void once they're in the Farm.

c. Click the link: Add Server to Farm to add the MAC addresses of all child servers to server A. Note: Only add at most 5 servers at a time. To add more than 5 servers to the farm, repeat this step.

d. Refresh the Settings page for server A to ensure all MACs have been added correctly. 8. Start Symphony client and register the farm by [farm name] or server A's IP address or DNS

name.

9. Open the page: Server Configuration / Licenses. 10. Click the button: Refresh licenses from Aimetis.com. 11. Open the page: Server Configuration / Server Farm.

• If this page is not available it may be because some standard camera licenses exist. Server farms will only work if there are no standard licenses. All camera licenses must be Professional and/or Enterprise.

12. In the "Server address" text box, enter the IP address or DNS name of a child server to merge into the farm. Add only 1 child server at a time.

13. Click the button: Add server from another farm. This will add the child to the farm, transfer all

cameras and rules from the child server to the farm's database (residing on server A or on the dedicated SQL server), and change the database connection string on the child to point to server A's database (or the dedicated SQL server's database).

14. Restart server A and the child that was just added.

15. Ensure that all cameras from the child have been added correctly, as well as all rules and masks. 16. Repeat steps 12-15 for remaining servers.

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Camera Tour

By default, each Pan-tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera has a Home Position, where it is positioned unless a user manually controls the camera, or if the camera is automatically controlled by Symphony (for more information on auto control, please see the Rule element Actions). Using the Camera Tour function, the camera can be configured to have multiple Home Positions. This effectively allows the camera to cover more area.

To configure a Camera Tour, perform the following:

1. Access the Camera Tour dialog. Select the PTZ camera you wish to configure, and right click on the live view of the camera and click Camera Tour and then click Edit.

The Camera Tour dialog opens.

3. By default, there is one Camera Tour configuration. It is possible to have multiple Camera Tour

configurations with different tour locations and schedule. Select which Tour to modify.

4. Move the camera to the desired location by using the arrows and the + and - buttons to configure the zoom level. To save location, click Add Current Live View PTZ Location To The List.

5. By default, Symphony will move the camera between the different Locations every 600 seconds. To change this value, modify the Pause Time text box.

6. Click Change Motion Mask to modify the Motion Mask for the new Camera Tour location. This

enables you to define where Symphony should track or not track objects. Symphony treats each Camera Tour location much like a separate camera, since it has its own field of view. As a result, you need to define the Motion Mask are for each Camera Tour location. For more information on setting a Motion Mask, visit Masks.

7. Click Change Perspective Settings to modify Perspective information for the new Camera Tour

location (as required, not all video analytic engines require this). As in step 4 above, the Camera Tour location requires its own Motion Mask and Perspective information (to classify objects properly). Visit the section on Perspective configuration for more information.

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8. Click Set Schedule for This Tour to define when this Camera Tour is active. Since many

Camera Tours can be configured you may decide to have a Camera Tour sequence that is different during the day than at night, for example. The Set Schedule for this Tour dialog allows you to configure the Schedule for this specific Camera Tour. Each Camera Tour can run on a separate schedule. Note: Make sure that Camera Tour schedules do not overlap in time. See Also

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General Settings

The General Settings dialog is where video overlay information can be configured.

To access the General Settings dialog, select Server > Configuration and click the General

Settings pane. Usage:

Frame stats (FPS and frame time deviation) enable this checkbox to display frame information on live

video.

Overlay camera name on video enable this checkbox to display camera name on actual live video in

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Licenses

The Licenses dialog allows you to specify which License to run at which camera. To access the license dialog, click Server > Configuration and then select the Licenses pane.

The Licenses Summary dialog indicates counts of each license type per server. To modify license settings for a particular server click on the server in the Licenses tree to the left. The Licenses pane for that server appears which details how many licenses are available and what type of license is applied per camera. License types can be changed between cameras by adjusting the combo box adjacent to each camera. If the Licensed Requested field does not equal the License Obtained field, this indicated that

this license was not available.

Purchase additional licenses This will link you to the Aimetis Xnet where you can login to your account

and obtain additional licenses.

Refresh license from Aimetis.com If a newer license is available for your server, clicking this will force

Symphony to download the latest license file (you must have internet connectivity for this option).

Refresh license from file If you have a Symphony server without internet access, or otherwise unable

to automatically download a new license, using this option allows you to download the license and then manually apply it to the server.

Show Raw License will display the raw license in XML.

In a Server Farm, the entire farm shares one license file. All cameras and licenses will be summarized as if it were one physical server.

For more information on the different Symphony product versions and there associated features, please visit Symphony Server Licensing. For help on using the Aimetis Xnet and managing your server licenses, visit http://www.aimetis.com/xnet/help.aspx

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Manual Configuration Editor

Deep Symphony settings can be changed by modifying the configuration settings directly, which are stored in the SQL database. The configuration can be accessed directly through Symphony Client. This may be required for less common features that do not have a Graphical User Interface and must be configured through the configuration files directly.

WARNING: Modifying configuration incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Symphony. Aimetis cannot guarantee that problems resulting from incorrectly modifying the configuration files can be solved. Do this at your own risk.

To access the configuration files, click Server > Manual Configuration Editor

1. Modify the portion of the configuration by navigating to the value, or add a new value be typing into the Add a new setting... field.

2. Press OK to save changes

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Subscriptions

Use Subscriptions to automatically email information to users when one of the below events occurs on the Symphony server. This is useful when you want to be notified automatically when some configuration has changed. All email will include the username, IP, date/time, and additional event specific context. To access the Subscriptions dialog, select Server > Configuration and then the Subscriptions Pane.

To add subscribers to the individual events, simply enter an email address in the corresponding text box. To add multiple recipients of an event, separate the email addresses with a semicolon. When finished, click OK to save changes. The different events are defined below:

Event Descriptions

Alarm marked An alarm was marked as false or real or comments were added via the alarm log panel.

Audio played A user played a sound file or spoke over the speaker using the Alarm console. Audit log

retrieved The audit logs detailing everything that occurs on the Symphony server were retrieved. Client

connection A user connected from Symphony Client. Devices

changed A user has added, deleted, or modified a Device. Exported

video A user has exported video from the system. Footage/Video

deleted A user has deleted video from the system. Rules

changed A user added, deleted, or changed a Rule. PTZ Control A user has taken control over a PTZ camera. Search

performed A user performed a video search. Server

updated The Symphony server code was updated to a new version from Aimetis. Services

changed A user changed which Services are running. Settings

changed A user changed camera, video, or other miscellaneous setting. Subscriptions

changed A user changed settings on this form. Unauthorized

access A user tried to access something they were not allowed to. Users

changed Users were added, deleted, or changed.

Note: In order for this to function properly, a proper SMTP server must be configured on the Symphony PC. Visit Configuring Mail Server for more information.

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Note: If you want to be notified via email whenever an alarm occurs, you must set this up under the

Rule Actions in the Email tab. This is designed this way to allow different users to be notified only for specific Rules triggers (for example, user A wishes to be notified in a vehicle parks, user B wishes to be notified if people are loitering).

See Also

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3rd Party Integration

Symphony can interface with 3rd party systems (such as alarm panels or access control products) using one of following ways:

1. Using IO Device 2. TCP tab in Actions 3. SDK

4. Packaged Integrations

Using IO Device

Symphony can communicate with external systems by interfacing with dry contact (or Input/Output) devices. This is the simplest form of access control support. To receive alarms via IO device, configure a Rule where the input is the dry contact of a network camera or external IO device. For more information on IO devices, visit Device Setup. Symphony can also close relay's on IO devices by configuring the Actions tab in the Rule wizard.

TCP tab in Actions

Another way of sending alarms to external systems is by using the TCP tab in the Actions menu. On alarm, the Rule Action will be to send a plain text message to a designated IP/Port on the network.

SDK

Symphony can communicate more richly with 3rd party systems via the Aimetis SDK. The SDK includes numerous sample applications with source code which demonstrate communicating over a TCP/IP network.

Packaged Integrations

Symphony has pre-packaged integrations with Access Control Manufacturers. For more information, visit the Technical Paper on Access Control Support.

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Logs and Audits

View Detailed Logs

View Detailed Logs provides a view of all logs recorded on Symphony server and Symphony Client. To

open, select Help > View Detailed Logs.

Warning: It could take several minutes to get all of the log files from a slow connection. Usage:

By default, the client logs are shown. To access the server logs, click a server in the list. In the example below, [500weber] represents the currently connected server.

Copy to Clipboard: Copies Entire text to clipboard.

Download: Will zip all log files and place them on your desktop. You can then send them to Aimetis for

troubleshooting.

Find Next: Enter text to query the log file. Date: Show the logs for the current date.

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Above: Client logs. Below: Server logs.

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See Also

View Logins

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View Logins

View Logins can be used to see who is accessing a Symphony server. To open the Logins interface, from

Symphony Client select Server > View Logins. Select Date to pick a day to view.

Select Copy to Clipboard to copy data to clipboard.

Select Print and Export to export data and select the format of the data (.txt, .xls, .xml, html)

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See Also

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Managing Symphony Health

Health Monitoring

If the Health Monitoring option has been purchased, Symphony Server sends every 15 minutes for each camera a "health packet" which contains health information about the server. Aimetis offers a managed service which enables users to login to the Aimetis Xnet (http://aimetis.com/xnet/) and see the status on all Symphony Services. Health Packets are sent as UDP packets.

Each Health Packet contains the following information: Server name

Server ID Camera ID

Source IP address

Version of Aimetis software running on the server Amount of CPU the AI Tracker has used

How long the AI Tracker has been running Number of alarms

Amount of free disk space

The health packet interval can be re-configured in the manual configuration editor. Section = main

Key = StatusInterval

Value = number of seconds between packets. The default value is 900. To apply change to a single server only, use:

Type = Server, Id = the server's logical ID.

To apply to all servers in the farm, Type = Global, Id = <empty string>.

See Also

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Kill All

Symphony comes with a dos utility which can be used to automatically start, stop or restart the Symphony Services. This can be faster than individually managing the services from the Services console in

windows (accessed by running "Services.msc" from the Start > Run command). Using the Killall utility will not restart the SQL Database.

Usage: killall <command> Where next command is one of:

1 - Stop Services gracefully 2 - Terminate services

3 - Start services gracefully (restart web) 4 - Terminate services only if necessary

5 - Start services gracefully (leave web alone) 6 - <pid> - Kill the specified pid

7 - Restart web

8 - Get CPU usage from shared memory

9 - Same as 4 except will also kill infoservice r - Restart services (killall 9, killall 5) s - Restart services in sequence

t <tracker id> - Restart tracker <tracker id>

Usage Example:

To restart all system services, from the command prompt type killall r and click ENTER on keyboard to run command.

See Also

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Server Status

Symphony server provides detailed logs and monitoring functionality. To receive full diagnostic information on your Symphony server, from Symphony Client, select Server > Get Info. By default, information on CPU, RAM and DISK information is displayed. By selecting Verbose and

clicking Get Info, much more information can be displayed.

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Symphony Services

Overview

Symphony server runs the following core Services. All Symphony Services are prefixed with an "AI". AI

InfoService Web Server running Symphony's web service which receives all requests from the client. AI

NetSendHist Responsible for historical video streaming and historical .JPEG creation. AI

Scheduler Responsible for polling hardware alarm inputs, cleaning video, running reports and searches, synchronizes CPU and other processes on system. AI Tracker X The process that performs video analysis, saves video to disk, live video streaming.

Each camera requires its own AI Tracker service.

Troubleshooting Tips:

1. Symphony Requires the AI InfoService to be running properly. Normally connectivity issues between the client and server are caused by a resource conflict between another process using Port 50000, or a Firewall preventing Symphony and the AI InfoService from communicating properly.

2. By default, Symphony installs a Microsoft SQL Server express database during the installation of Symphony Server. Make sure the SQL Server (AIMETIS) service is started.

Managing Symphony Services

Symphony services can be stopped and started individually. Services can be individually restarted directly from Symphony Client, or from Windows directly by using the Services Console.

From within Symphony

If you do not have direct access to the windows environment on the Symphony server, you can manage services remotely using Symphony Client.

To manually stop and start individual services, from Symphony Client select Server > Services > Manage Services.

1. Select which server to configure from the combo box above the Refresh button

2. Select the services you want start or stop by clicking to the left of the service. 3. Press the "Toggle" button.

4. Press the "Refresh" button to see if the state of the server changed. Warning: Changing service states can adversely affect your Symphony installation.

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By default, the Symphony Services start on boot-up of the operating system. If you do not want Symphony Services to automatically start on system startup, uncheck the Automatically Start Symphony Services on system startup checkbox.

From Windows directly

To restart the Symphony Services directly from windows, (from windows, click on Start > Run > type Services.msc and hit enter).

1. Load the Services Console.

2. Right Click on the service you wish to start, stop, or restart.

See Also

Aimetis Symphony. User Guide. Video Management & Analytics Software. July 2009 Symphony v6.2. Last Reviewed: Product Version: Powered by Vision TM

User Guide

Last Reviewed:

Product Version:

Video Management & Analytics Software

July 2009

Symphony v6.2

Table of Contents

Welcome to Aimetis Symphony v6.2

The Industry Standard in video management & analytics

Welcome to Symphony

What is Symphony

Understanding Symphony Licensing

Symphony Server Licensing

Installation and Activation

Pre-installation Planning

Symphony Installation and Data Folders

Symphony Server

Symphony Client

Server Farms

About Server Farms

Creating a Server Farm

Installing Symphony Server

Installing Symphony Client

Installing Symphony Player

Post-Installation

Post Installation steps

Firewalling Symphony

Configuring your Mail Server

Administration

Server Configuration

Configuring User Access

Device Setup

Camera Tree

Map Configuration

Storage

Server Farms

Camera Tour

General Settings

Licenses

Manual Configuration Editor

Subscriptions

3rd Party Integration

Logs and Audits

View Detailed Logs

View Logins

Managing Symphony Health

Health Monitoring

Kill All

Server Status

Symphony Services