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Disaster Recovery Solutions
Although more and more people today rely on the internet for the latest news, in times of emergency, people still rely on their TV and radios to find out the latest status. Broadcasters take this responsibility very seriously and many look for solutions to stay on are during an emergency. This could include natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tornados or simply equipment failures or man-made disasters such as terrorist acts or operational mistakes.
The ideal solution is also technically the simplest but extremely expensive – mirror your main facility. In today’s environment, few can afford such a solution. Aveco has developed several practical solutions that are cost effective; two of which are described here.
- Dedicated Disaster Recovery (DR) Site - Because of the fortunately small chance of needing to use a DR site, many customers choose to build a minimal functionality site with the ability to stay on air at the lowest cost. The solution here is designed with an operational model that is the least disruption to existing workflows and requires minimal, if any new operator training (Figure 1).
- Dual Purpose Site - An alternative solution is dual purpose sites that can be used for every day operations but has an additional channel that can be quickly switched to a DR channel for a failed site. These are generally existing sites that are on air today but expanded with additional channel capability that is held as a spare for another site.
Considerations for a DR site
Below are some considerations in designing a DR solution. This is not a comprehensive list, but is a good starting point. (Download the white paper for more detailed description of each item at www.aveco.com/downloads/xxxxxx )
- Video duplication – Video material needs to be constantly updated at the DR site.
- Playlist Duplication – short term – A 24 hour playlist is the minimum that needs to be always loaded at the DR site to provide protection for the next 24 hours.
- Playlist Generation – longer term – If the DR site is designed to run for more than 24 hours, which would generally be the case, considerations for generating playlists for the next 2-3 days need be downloaded.
- Broadcast Equipment Chain – One of the major costs for a DR site is the equipment. For a basic DR site, minimal functionality can result in significant cost savings.
- News Studio – Often it is desirable to have live broadcasting capability at the DR site for reporting current events.
- Automation – To control the DR site, the automation system needs to meet these criteria. But if it does not support these features, is not up-to-date or fit into your long term growth plans, a new automation system needs to be considered. Aveco can easily import playlists from your current traffic system and manage the whole DR workflow.
- Operations and Workflow – The goal is to minimize disruptions to current workflows. Because of the flexibility of Aveco’s systems, it can easily be adopted to most any workflow.
- Ingest – If the DR site is designed for longer term operation, then it needs to be designed with ingest capability including live feeds and manual ingest.
- Facility Restoration – This step is often overlooked but moving operations back to the main site needs to be part of the overall DR workflow.
- Monitoring and Testing–A plan is needed to continually verify that all the backup equipment and workflows are operational and should be part of an operational plan.
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Figure 1 - The main architecture of a minimally functionality DR site has a high speed connection to the main facility for playlist and file downloads. Functionality of the DR site is usually the bare minimum for keeping a signal on-air.
Figure 2 - An example of two fully operational sites backing up each other. By keeping playlists and files synchronized and having a spare channel, each site can provide complete backup of the other site.
Financial Aspects of a DR Site
Few organizations have excess money sitting around for a DR site so significant thought and planning need to go into justifying this investment. Below are a few of the operational and financial concerns; the critical loss of community service and communications discussed earlier are on top of these issues.
Cost of going off-air – One easy analysis is the lost revenue for every hour off air. Your program costs stay the same if you broadcast a program or not but you will have to make good on the spots that did not air. Depending on when during the day you are off-air, this can be a significant cost.
Disaster damage – If a disaster occurs that does physical damage to the site, then off-air times will be measured in weeks or months while repairs are being made. Without advanced planning, trying to find alternate broadcast facilities and equipment will be an expensive and time-consuming scramble often resulting in mixed results. Even a minimal facility will get you back on air quickly. Loss of revenues for a lengthy amount of time can be devastating, even with insurance coverage, not to mention loss of income for employees, possible loss of key personal, and loss of community service.
Dual Use Sites – To minimize the expense of a DR site, building it so the resources can be used during normal times will help financially as well as providing excess capacity. An additional studio could be used for live events without tying up the main studio. The additional equipment could be used for ingest and QA overload times. Maintenance of equipment at the main facility can easier be performed by taking it off-line and using the DR site’s equipment.
Aveco Solutions
ASTRA MCR and News solutions are built with a unique networked, distributed architecture that controls equipment at remote sites just as local equipment. Thus a system can be designed such that 2 or more sites operate technically as a single site. In a DR situation, one site can go down and control can pass to another site fairly seamlessly with a redundant, mirrored design.
Aveco can adapt a solution to match your current workflow, provide various backup solutions and keep you on air in an emergency.
Summary
In times of stress, good planning and forethought can minimize the disruption to a station’s programming and finances while at the same time; provide a valuable service to the community. Many options are available to you based on your budget and needs but the key is to start planning today. Industry experts are available to help with your planning. |