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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.

You may also develop your own custom application instead of Watcher VMS to implement business logics at your discretion.

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

You can install Flussonic Central as a separate package following the Flussonic Central quick start guide.

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

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, Flussonic Central, and Flussonic Watcher VMS (or a custom app that you may develop instead of 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.