Are you noticing traffic on your network from our Avonic cameras and you would like to know more about what it is doing? We're assuming you've used a tool like Wireshark to look at your network and you've seen some traffic on your network that you have a question about. Most likely you have seen packages being sent to IP 235.255.255.250 from port 3702/UDP. This is completely normal behavior for our cameras and other devices, they are notifying their existence through WS-Discovery.


What is WS-Discovery

WS-Discovery is a way devices on the network are communicating with each other. Devices need to be able to talk to each other. For instance, if you'd like to steam music to a smart speaker, or if you are trying to find cameras to control through ONVIF. Exactly this last example is what our cameras are communicating about. WS-Discovery is a technical term to describe this multicast broadcast of services on the local network. This standardized way helps you operate devices and services as you would expect them to work.


More information on the WS-Discovery on this wikipedia article.


Is it safe?

Yes, this protocol is safe and designed this way. Although your network is only as safe as the weakest link in it, that is why it's good practice to keep on top of your security and run the latest updates and firmware where possible. If possible, make sure that your network's router is implementing basic security rules for firewalls, VLANs and other network segregating measures.


Is there a limit to these requests?

These packages shouldn't interfere with normal networking business. As shown in the diagram below from network supplier Juniper, these packages (when using small sizes) would be handled tens- to hundreds of thousands per second without any issue. Again, this depends on your individual network setup.


PPS Calculation


Conclusion

After having read all this, we can conclude that there is nothing wrong and you don't have to take any steps on these occurrences. You can leave this as is. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us through the support form.