Security
VMS
Also called: Video Management System, NVR software
Software that records, stores, searches, and distributes video from many cameras, and hosts the analytics and access rules on top of them.
A VMS differs from an appliance NVR in scale and reach: multi-site federation, role-based permissions, retention policy per camera, health monitoring, and integration with access control so a door event pulls up the matching clip. For anything past one building, that integration is the whole point.
Storage sizing is where VMS projects go wrong. Retention days, resolution, frame rate, codec, and how much motion the scene actually contains all multiply out, and a busy parking lot consumes several times what a quiet corridor does. Size the array from measured bitrates, not from the vendor's calculator defaults.
Related terms
- IP Camera
- A network camera that encodes video onboard and streams it over Ethernet, typically powered by PoE and recorded by an NVR or video management software.
- ONVIF
- An open standard for IP video devices that lets cameras from one manufacturer work with recorders and video management software from another.
- H.265
- A video compression standard that delivers similar quality to H.264 at roughly half the bitrate, cutting storage and bandwidth for surveillance.
- Retention Period
- How long recorded video is kept before being overwritten — set by storage capacity and by whatever regulation, insurer, or policy applies to the site.
More Security terms
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