As your Developer Advocate, I walk you through my first experience developing a sample integration using the MIP SDK and testing it out on a Milestone XProtect® installation on AWS in the Cloud.
Building a sample integration turned out to be pretty simple! I did a
• Driver framework sample after taking the New MIP Driver Framework eLearning Course
• Configuration API Batch Component Integration Sample
As I had not learnt how to set up a running XProtect environment to try out the integration, and as “XProtect on AWS” were just released, it seemed obvious to use XProtect on AWS as test bench for the integrations. It turned out to be super-simple to spin up an XProtect environment on AWS, manually deploy the sample integration, and use it. The XProtect environment(s) on AWS can be taken up and down in minutes – and you only pay per use!
The following steps worked for me:
1. Got Visual Studio and downloaded the MIP SDK on my laptop
2. Took the MIP Driver Framework eLearning Course – it’s a great course, and it got me going, both as introduction and as reference. Recommended!
3. Built the sample driver utilizing the MIP Driver Framework – Now it was time to test my integration
4. Signed up for an AWS account – CHARGING DEPENDS ON YOUR USE
5. Created my own AWS Key Pair – (in EC2 Service / Network & Security / Key Pairs)
6. Created my own XProtect Essential+ installation on AWS – following Jan Lindeberg’s 2,5 minutes video, using my own Key Pair
- Now I got a new XProtect Essential+ installation up and running with demo cameras and all; easy to demo from a local browser
- It’s also pretty straightforward to Connect to the EC2 instance with RDP, and use the XProtect Smart- and Management Clients installed on the “box”
7. Copied my sample driver to the EC2 instance and restarted the recording Server there “just as usual”
- Now I could add and configure the sample driver as hardware in the Management Client (as in the course)
8. Additionally, I copied the Demo Driver Device to my cloud installation, configured a demo driver and added the "camera" to the Smart Client
- Could interact with the Demo Driver in the Smart Client
I can only imagine that XProtect on AWS could be very useful for spinning up test environments for functional testing but also for performance and scalability testing, as you can configure very big XProtect installations on AWS, and only pay when actually in use.
Don’t hesitate to reach out – on the Developer Forum or directly on hki@milestone.dk
My plan is to walk you through the above on Milestone Developer Conference 2020 – sign up here (no longer possible to sign up)