Cameras are ubiquitous in daily life, and most modern cameras are network-enabled. In the early stage of network camera development, hardware manufacturers communicated via proprietary private protocols. As camera application scenarios expanded and more manufacturers entered the market, isolated private protocols gradually became obsolete.

To address this compatibility problem, Axis Communications partnered with Bosch and Sony to jointly develop the ONVIF protocol, whose full name is the Open Network Video Interface Forum.

The ONVIF protocol covers a full set of capabilities including device discovery, device configuration, event handling, PTZ pan-tilt-zoom control, video analytics, real-time video streaming, as well as video/audio search, playback and recording management.

All interfaces defined for device management and control within the ONVIF specification are implemented in the form of Web Services. Every ONVIF-compliant terminal device must deploy corresponding Web Services matching its functional modules. Meanwhile, audio and video streaming transmission in ONVIF is realized via RTP/RTSP.

Simplified formula for ONVIF architecture:ONVIF=Server+Client=(Web Services+RTSP)+Client=((WSDL+SOAP)+RTSP)+Client