By Dimi Sandu, Head of Solutions Engineering (EMEA)
ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum) is an organization composed of multiple physical security manufacturers, to produce standards for interoperability between IP-based products. It dates back to 2008 and was founded by Axis Communications, Bosch Security Systems, and Sony. As of 2022, it has almost 500 members and around 23,000 products that conform to the standard. They cover not only CCTV functionality, but also access control.
ONVIF aims to standardize the communication between devices and software produced by these manufacturers, so that a customer can mix and match different products, catering to use cases such as:
- Purchasing cameras from different vendors (in case one can not offer all the required functionality in their product line, or to decrease cost)
- Utilizing different NVRs or VMSs in conjunction with cameras manufactured by one or multiple vendors
- Integrating two or more systems in case of mergers and acquisitions
ONVIF devices can be IP-based cameras, NVRs, and encoders, while examples of ONVIF clients include VMS servers and media players. The latter uses a mix between the ONVIF protocol (over port 580) to request a particular stream, and the well-known RTSP protocol (over port 554) to carry the data transfer.
The core ONVIF specification covers IP configuration, device discovery and management, viewing and PTZ control, events, analytics, and security. In order to make it easy for one to understand if two different devices or software systems can interact with each other, they need to both have the same profile (such as D, G, M, S, or T).
Each ONVIF profile provides clear specifications (sets of features) that each manufacturer must follow for their products to be ratified. Only an ONVIF member can go through this process, utilizing a Test Tool to produce a Declaration of Conformance. Once that happens, the publicly available ONVIF database gets updated, and anyone interested can search and find these products.
Note: a device or software can be certified across multiple profiles, but two different ones must share at least one profile in order for them to interoperate.
One caveat to this is that ONVIF compliance is a self-certified process (with no 3rd party involvement), meaning that the ONVIF group takes no responsibility when two different products or functionalities do not perform well, or not function at all. This means it is solely the responsibility of the customer to test this interoperability, and that vendors are not legally liable to adhere to these standards.
Does Verkada Support ONVIF?
With all this in mind, let’s understand why Verkada does not support ONVIF. The core design principles of the platform are simplicity, ease of use, and plug & play, none achievable by mixing different manufacturers (that would require the end customer or integrator to stitch the solution together). In addition, Verkada, as the sole manufacturer of both the hardware and software, is responsible for the end-to-end performance of the system, with every client able to raise support cases and get resolutions when the solution does not meet the SLAs described.
It is important to note that Verkada does support RTSP, so any client with a mixed estate or undergoing a long transition from a previous system can use that to pull streams into a central VMS. This means that their security teams can avoid the use of two separate systems for monitoring the estate.
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