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Introduction to Flussonic Central

Flussonic Central is a product for operating several Flussonic Media Servers through a single point of access. It is Flussonic Central that unites your streamers with Flussonic Media Server installed on them into a consolidated system.

Flussonic Central purpose

Although Flussonic Media Server itself provides practically endless possibilities for handling video, it may not be enough for some applications like a fully-featured video surveillance system. Flussonic Media Server captures, records, and delivers video streams from cameras but it is a stand-alone single server. To unite streamers with Flussonic Media Server into a video surveillance system, Flussonic Central implements the following features:

  • Centralized control over video streams from cameras on several streamers from one managing server.
  • Fault tolerance and scalability achieved by several streamers in a cluster.
  • Centralized management of analytics running on dedicated streamers, including database of analytics events, database of sample identifiers and identification process.
  • PTZ control on cameras.
  • Managing camera configuration via ONVIF.
  • Agent management.

All other functions of Flussonic Watcher including users and permissions, camera hierarchy and archive limitations, etc., are the part of Watcher VMS. It is Watcher VMS that you access via the clients like Watcher web UI and Watcher mobile app.

Flussonic Central is good for you if:

  • you already have your own system with users and permissions which are completely different from what we have in Watcher VMS; or
  • your project just does not require Watcher VMS functions.

Flussonic Central installation

Flussonic Central and Watcher VMS are installed together when you follow the Watcher installation steps but you may use only Flussonic Central as it is independent from VMS (but not otherwise).

See also Flussonic Central quick start guide

Interactions between Flussonic Central, Watcher VMS and Flussonic Media Server

Flussonic Central manages configuration of Flussonic Media Server. Watcher VMS addresses Flussonic Central when users manage cameras (streams), analytics, PTZ, ONVIF, and Agents.

The scheme of data exchange between streamers with Flussonic Media Server and the managing server with Flussonic Watcher is as follows:

Flussonic Central communication scheme

The above scheme represents data flows only. Please refer here for the scheme with the video flows.