The same core platform design can be used for small or large systems. The following sections list some of the differences.
Small and medium system scaling
The platform design architecture we tested is ready for use with a medium airport system ( 500 to 1000 Cameras).
It is important to note that at a minimum a single instance of all the management VMs needs to be provisioned even with a small cluster.
- Deploy a minimum of 4 active + 1 standby VxRail nodes.
- If fewer analytic cameras are needed, reduce the GPUs to one per node. This is preferred to going with less capable cards and gives the best option for future expansion.
- Memory cannot be reduced for the nodes since the VMS or CV management VMs can require large memory and need to fit in the same VxRail cluster.
- While it might be possible to reduce the CPU core counts for very small systems, it is recommended that validation be performed before finalizing the specification.
With this approach, it is possible to scale a Small or Medium platform by adding up to two A40 GPUs per host, then adding additional hosts to the cluster if the environment needs expand over time.
Large system scaling
A large system has some notable characteristic differences. For example, the management VMs carry less overall system overhead when distributed across a large cluster.
The following guidelines can be used when scaling up to a large system:
- Calculate the number of nodes required based on:
- Each node can have a max of 1440 Mb/s or 420 Cameras @3.2 Mb/s.
- Each node can host two CV applications processing a max of 80 analytic cameras total.
- Allocate two additional nodes for all management VMs (such as Primary or Secondary databases)
- Add one or more standby nodes for HA operations.
Example: Building a 5000 camera system
Our system requirements consist of:
- Enough capacity to process 5000 cameras @3.2 Mb/s
- Resources capable of running CV applications processing video from 1000 real-time analytic cameras
Number of processing nodes | Camera archive = 5000/420 = 12 nodes Camera analytics = 1000/80 = 13 nodes Number required = the maximum from above = 13 nodes |
Number of management nodes | 2 nodes |
HA capacity | 2 nodes |
Total | 17 nodes |