Can I plug my NVR directly into my cable modem?

[Boston_Engineer]

Hi all. I have an ARRIS SURFboard SB8200 DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem. It has 2 ethernet ports on it. 1 port is occupied by my Google Smart Mesh Wifi base station. My entire home and all devices run very well on this wireless mesh network.

I recently purchased NVR5216-16P-EI / NVR16CH-16P-2AI from EmpireTech. I'm trying to understand the appropriate way to implement this on my network. Should I plug it directly into the 2nd open port on the modem? Do I need to purchase a router, or some other piece of hardware to go in between?

Also, I've read about how it can be smart from a security standpoint to "segment" a network by using VLANs. Because my entire home network is on my wireless network and I'm setting up my NVR outside of that WLAN, am I accomplishing the same thing?

 

[bigredfish]

I'm gonna let one of the networking gurus answer in more depth but , yes you could plug the LAN side of your NVR into that modem. I'm assuming that a separate LAN addressing scheme is possible by the ARRIS on the two ports?

You may though attach a switch to it to allow you to more flexibility

@TonyR ?

 

[Boston_Engineer]

@bigredfish Thank you for the reply. To the best of my knowledge, my modem is simply a modem(not a modem/router), so I believe it will only deliver a raw, unmanaged WAN connection to the NVR. I'm assuming I will need to add a router to achieve proper configuration, but I'm curious if my NVR has router functionality built into it that makes it safe to connect directly?

Definitely interested to hear what the networking gurus have to say.

 

[TonyR]

Since that's a POE NVR the cams will be assigned private IP's by the NVR and be on a subnet separate from your LAN and isolates the cams from the Internet, much like a firewall.

The Arris SB8200 does not provide router functions.

EDIT you could connect a wireless router to the Arris such as from Asus or Netgear with built-in VPN functionality with OpenVPN as an example.
The modem would go to the router's WAN port and NVR would go to one of the router's LAN ports.

 

[TonyR]

I'm gonna let one of the networking gurus answer in more depth but ,

@TonyR ?

I sure ain't no guru...I know what I need to know to do what I gotta do and if I don't I won't pretend like I do just to hear myself talk....I got no problem saying "I don't know but maybe I can find out."

 

[bigredfish]

See that’s why I call in the Big Guns.

I wrongly assumed it might be a modem/router combo. If not then Tony got you the right answer

 

[Boston_Engineer]

@TonyR Thank you, that's good to know. I'll have to get into the manual (and Andy's videos) and start playing around with the configuration on this thing.