I’m interested in accessing my office computer, which has an 11-camera surveillance system running. The camera system is managed by WaveReader. The office computer has Windows XP Professional and DSL via BellSouth. My home computer is a laptop that runs XP Professional and has the WaveReader Software. I would like to be able to access the office computer from my home, which has a cable connection (Cox). Is it best to set up a VPN or can I access the computer using PCAnywhere 11.5 to accomplish the task? I believe I can get a static IP address from BellSouth. – Via the Internet
I’m interested in accessing my office computer, which has an 11-camera surveillance system running. The camera system is managed by WaveReader. The office computer has Windows XP Professional and DSL via BellSouth. My home computer is a laptop that runs XP Professional and has the WaveReader Software. I would like to be able to access the office computer from my home, which has a cable connection (Cox). Is it best to set up a VPN or can I access the computer using PCAnywhere 11.5 to accomplish the task? I believe I can get a static IP address from BellSouth.
– Via the Internet
Regardless of the solution that you finally select, having a fixed IP address from the ISP will make things much easier. Getting remote access to the computer running the software for the cameras is easy to do. I’m not sure from what you describe if the cameras are IP-based or not. From some research I did, it would appear that this may be the case. Doing basic remote control of a computer is a low-tech way to be able to watch the cameras. What may be a challenge is trying to watch the video streams over a remote control connection and see the same kind of detail that see when you’re local to a machine. You might have to limit remote viewing to a couple of cameras to keep the refresh rate on the screen to a manageable level; this will take some trial and error to find out the best configuration. If you go with PCAnywhere, make sure you have the latest version of the software and all updates applied. Turn up encryption as high as you can keeping in mind this is software-based encryption and will take CPU cycles away from the software you mentioned to handle the compression work. That might result in lost/damaged frames on the video recordings being done.
Doing a VPN (especially if you can get a static IP) may be easier to do and potentially less trouble in the long run. Since the application is talking to what appears to be IP-based cameras, you might be able to get a good enough connection between your home and the office to handle most, if not all, the camera connections at once. Since this would appear to be an application that could get rather intense on the bandwidth usage, you will want to select a VPN device for both ends that is up to the task and more importantly that you can get support for when you run into a problem. Do yourself a favor and get the same brand and model at each end of the connection. It will make dealing with support a lot easier. Look for a commercial-type VPN solution such as Cisco or Multitech, to mention just a couple of the options, in which you can get good support (be prepared for some type of support contact and a guarantee on response time for support and product repair/replacement by the vendor). With this type of connection, you won’t have to worry about the double screen refresh rate (once for the PC running the video software and once for your PC when it gets the updated screen information).
Both of these options have their pros and cons. Going with the PCAnywhere is something you can set up rather quickly. The VPN may be better able to handle the type of video traffic you’re describing and comes with another positive – you will have access to your office network just like you were there, albeit a little slower.
