Cisco Video Surveillance Monitoring Workstation Profiler Tool, Release 7.x User Guide

Using the Cisco Video Surveillance Monitoring Workstation Profiler Tool, Release 7

---

Revised: May 19, 2016

This guide describes how to use the Cisco Video Surveillance Workstation Profiler Tool (Profiler Tool) to analyze the ability of a PC client to render video using Cisco VSM 7.0 or higher.

Contents

• Overview
• System Requirements
• Summary Steps
• Installing the Profiler Tool and Sample Video Files
• Running a Profile Test
• Understanding the Test Results
• Creating Baseline and Operational Profiles
• Caveats
• Sample Test Results
• Related Documentation

Overview

The Cisco Video Surveillance Workstation Profiler Tool (Profiler Tool) is a stand-alone Windows utility that validates and predicts the ability of a PC client to render video.

Workstation hardware and software strongly affects the ability of a workstation to play video. The Profiler Tool characterizes your workstation’s hardware and software capabilities and limitations, allowing you to make the workstation adjustments that are optimal for your operational environment.

The Profiler Tool provides a consistent means of measuring not only how well the workstation can display video in general, but also how well it performs under different conditions.

When To Run The Test

To establish a baseline, you first run the Profiler Tool to take measurements right after the workstation is booted and no other applications have consumed system resources. Run the tool again during normal operation when other tools and applications are running.

Examining the differences in performance between the baseline and normal measurements allows you decide how to configure your workstation to strike the best balance between video rendering performance and operational convenience. For example, you may learn that you can continue to run a particular application you need to use because it does not have a major on performance, or you may learn that you need to run the application on a different system because it does have a major impact.

Overall, the Profiler Tool help your stream profiles and workstations that best fit together. You can eliminate issues before they occur and help troubleshoot problems that do occur.

What the Profiler Tool Does and Does Not Do

The Profiler Tool is designed to perform specific tests.

It DOES:

• Summarize the workstation hardware and software attributes.
• Tell the ability of the workstation to successfully display a variety of video clips from different codecs and multiple panes.
• Identify issues or possible causes of concern that may affect the workstation’s ability to render video.

It DOES NOT:

• Evaluate network throughput
• Validate video quality

See the “Caveats” section for more information.

System Requirements

You can download and run the Profiler Tool on any PC that meets the system requirements described in the Cisco Video Surveillance Monitoring Workstation Performance Baseline Specification.

After running initial baseline and operational tests, compare the results to determine whether you need to modify the workstation’s operational configuration to improve performance.

Restrictions for Laptops With i3 or i5 Processors

Computers with Intel i3 or i5 processors experience poor performance when running 5x5 video views, including high CPU usage and low frames per second. x5 layouts may be skipped when running the Profiler Tool on these computers.

Summary Steps

 

Installing the Profiler Tool and Sample Video Files

The Profiler Tool is distributed in a .ZIP archive file that contains the ProfilerTool.exe executable file.

Usage Notes

The Profiler Tool tests the workstation capabilities by playing the video files that are added to the “Profiles” directory located in the same directory as the Profiler Tool

• The sample video files must downloaded and extracted to the “Profiles” directory (located in the same directory as the Profiler Tool), as shown in Figure 1.
• Sample files are available in the H264, H264HD, JPEG, MPEG formats and include 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 layouts. Download and extract the file formats required for testing by your deployment
• We recommend including all 4 layouts for complete workstation analysis.
• Any missing file formats or layouts are skipped and not included in the results. See the “Understanding the Test Results” section.

Figure 1 Sample Video Files in the “Profiles” Directory

 

Procedure

---

Step 1 Use a web browser to access the Cisco Video Surveillance Manager product page.

Step 2 Click Download Software.

Step 3 Select Video Surveillance Manager Stand-alone Tools.

Step 4 Select Release 7.0.1 (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Profiler Tool Download Page

 

Step 5 Download the “Cisco Video Surveillance Workstation Profile Tool” and extract it to a local directory, such as \ ProfilerTool.

Step 6 Download and extract the “Profile Tool Clips” to the same directory (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Profiler Tool Directory

 

---

Note Each of the “Profile” video sample codecs (H264, H264HD, JPEG, MPEG4) includes a set of video files in 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 layouts. These files are used by the Profiler Tool to analyze the ability of your workstation to process video. Include the codecs required by your deployment. Any missing files are skipped.

 

Running a Profile Test

There are two profile tests: a regular test that skips the remaining layouts for a codec if any layout tests fails, and the Stress test that tests all layouts for all codecs.

Procedure

---

Step 1 Determine if you want to test the workstation in baseline or operational mode.

See the “Creating Baseline and Operational Profiles” section.

Step 2 Launch the ProfilerTool.exe from the directory where you extracted the tool and video profiles (Figure 3).

Step 3 Click Tools and start the test as described in Table 2 (see also Figure 4):

---

Note Any missing file format or layout directory is skipped. For example, if the MPEG4 directory is missing, the test proceeds to H264 after completing JPEG. If the 2x2 layout in JPEG directory is missing, the test proceeds to the JPEG 3x3 layout after completing 1x1.

 

Figure 4 Profile Test Options

 

Step 4 Wait for all tests to complete.

• The test for each layout takes 1 minute to complete.
• Each codec (JPEG, MPEG4, H264, H264HD) includes video clips for four layouts: 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4. It takes 16 minutes for all tests to run. Less time is required if a tests fails using the regular test (since additional layouts for that codec are skipped) or if you choose Stop Profiler before testing is complete.

Step 5 Continue to “Understanding the Test Results”.

 

Understanding the Test Results

The test results are displayed in the ProfilerToolReport.txt file that is automatically created at the end of the test. The report includes three major sections:

 

---

Tip The ProfilerToolReport.txt report is automatically created and saved to the Profiler Tool directory. Choose File > Save As to save the file to another name to compare against additional tests.

The Profiler Tool measures successful playback for a given video pane using the following criteria:

• The pane can successfully access the video file
• The pane can successfully play the video file
• The pane can successfully render at least 80% of the nominal video frame rate
• CPU usage is under 90%

Additional criterion for layout success:

• All videos in a layout are rendered successfully

---

Note ● If a layout fails, all subsequent layouts for that profile are skipped unless you selected the Stress Test.

• Any missing or mis-named directories or sample video files are skipped and not included in the results. See the “Installing the Profiler Tool and Sample Video Files” section for more information.

 

---

Tip See the “Caveats” section for more information.

Figure 5 Profiler ToolReport

 

Creating Baseline and Operational Profiles

We strongly recommend that you take a baseline profile of your system to determine an upper bound on the ability of your workstation to play video. The baseline profile is taken with all applications and services that are not essential to run your system turned off, and then saved for later reference.

You can then turn on the applications and services again and run profiles again. If the measurements you get are significantly lower than the baseline, you can turn non-critical applications and services off selectively until you are able to achieve acceptable measurements.

In particular, note that following applications and services may have a significant impact on performance:

• Backup, restoring, and archiving processes
• Anti-virus software
• Any other software that requires significant processor resources

---

Note Firewalls do not affect performance and do not need to be turned off for the baseline measurements.

Procedure

To create a baseline or operational profile, follow these steps:

---

Step 1 Gather any sample profile clips that you want to use as part of the baseline profile.

Step 2 Log into your workstation as administrator.

Step 3 Turn off applications and services:

– If you are running a baseline profile, turn off all applications and services that are not essential to running your workstation, and reboot your system.

– If you are running an operational profile, turn off all the applications that are not needed for normal operation, and reboot your system.

Step 4 Extract all the contents of the Profiler Tool.ZIP archive (see the “Installing the Profiler Tool and Sample Video Files” section).

Step 5 Complete the profile test as described in the “Running a Profile Test” section.

Step 6 Interpret the test results as described in the “Understanding the Test Results” section.

Step 7 (Optional) Click Save As and save the results to a text file.

Step 8 (Optional) Revise the workstation hardware or software attributes to align with the requirements defined in the Cisco Video Surveillance Monitoring Workstation Performance Baseline Specification.

Step 9 (Optional) Repeat this procedures to compare the results with the previous test.

 

Caveats

Many factors combine in complex ways to produce the quality of experience for displayed video. Because the Profiler Tool is a stand-alone utility that uses local clip files, it cannot guarantee that video streams over the network will play properly. It cannot determine the visual quality of video; therefore, it displays video for you to examine visually while the test are running.

The following specific factors are outside the measurement and prediction scope of the Profiler Tool.

• Cannot alter the CPU usage on your workstation. To improve performance, you must make hardware or software adjustments based on the baseline and operational test results.
• Cannot validate video quality.
• Does not determine the smoothness of play back.
• Does not report number of dropped frames.
• Cannot evaluate network throughput.
• Only.CVA video files are supported. The Profiler Tool does not test video from other formats.
• Can estimate, but not calculate precisely, the overall performance within a Operations Manager interface running in a browser.
• Cannot predict interactions with applications that are not part of the test.
• Can save test result details only for the currently completed test.

Sample Test Results

The following sample test results include a summary of the test results, workstation details, possible issues that may affect video performance, and detailed test results. See the “Understanding the Test Results” section for more information.

Related Documentation

• Cisco Video Surveillance Monitoring Workstation Performance Baseline Specification
• See the Cisco Video Surveillance 7 Documentation Roadmap for descriptions and links to Cisco Video Surveillance documentation, server and storage platform documentation, and other related documentation.