Since the release of the first CNSG IP-based product called DETEXI in 1999, a lot has happened in the security world. Hardly anyone was manufacturing IP cameras then, and the established security industry, using Closed Circuit TV (CCTV), regarded IP-based surveillance as a mere child's toy, at best, or as a threat to their proprietary hardware and cable installations, at worst.

By the new millennium, however, the many advantages of new technology had become evident. The serious manufacturers are now proudly presenting their own IP cameras on the market, and they are also realizing that the cameras alone cannot do everything the customers want from today’s IT options.

Network Video Recorders - NVR’s - eliminate the need for cameras to be physically connected to them. Cameras can be placed anywhere on a wired or wireless network and be locally controled and recordered. This model allows for easy expansion and full mobility.

Two challenges facing video surveillance systems today are scalability and reliability. Large organizations that have multiple sites in local or remote locations could have from ten to over a thousand cameras to manage.
The approach in the past would be to have islands of stand alone systems that required time consuming and inconvenient maintenance and management.

Network Video Recorders - NVR’s - eliminate the need for cameras to be physically connected to them. Cameras can be placed anywhere on a wired or wireless network and be locally controlled and recorded. This model allows for easy expansion and full mobility.

Digital video recording consumes a large amount of hard drive storage space. With a large amount of cameras sending information to the ARCHIVE over a long period of time, the only way to deal adequately with the shear volume of files is to share the load over a distributed NVR network.