Playout Disaster Recovery (DR) with Aviator Make TV.

For broadcasters and media companies, running their linear channels successfully depends on the reliability of a variety of playout technology, from automation, video servers and storage to graphics, master control, and more.
Any outage on these mission-critical, ad revenue-generating channels can have a significant impact.
Every second you are off air has a cost. Your ad revenue takes a hit ― and so does your brand reputation. Viewer experience is affected, and that could mean losing your audience to a competitor.
Keeping your channels on air ― broadcasting programming and commercials ― is vital to business continuity and maintaining viewership.
With a DR solution in place, you are prepared whenever calamity strikes ― from a natural disaster, pandemic, or infrastructure failure to human error or a malicious cyberattack.

Building a DR System

DR channels can be deployed to run either on premises or in the cloud.

An on-prem deployment is more rigid, requiring a well-defined architecture depending on expected protection and budget. For example, a 1+1 (or mirrored) design is expensive and hard to maintain ― after a significant investment, you may see 50% of your equipment is always idle.

The alternative could be to build a scaled-down version of the main playout system, but that could end up being insufficient when operators actually have to access it for critical operations.

A cloud deployment for DR, however, gives you the flexibility and elasticity needed to meet your requirements as you respond to different circumstances. It also enables you to design a system with a subset of features compared to that of the main channels ― configurations that are sufficient to keep your channels alive and on air.

Choosing the Cloud for Continuity

To protect your assets and safeguard ad revenues, business continuity in the cloud provides the scrutinizing levels of security you demand. Partnering with the right supplier, you can leverage the cloud to achieve the necessary reliability, resilience and security to meet your revenue protection needs. Give yourself freedom to experiment ― DR can be the first step in a long-term cloud migration plan.

A DR solution in the cloud is:

Cost -Effective

When compared to maintaining on-prem equipment ― no upfront hardware and real estate investment required.

Align cost to risk, pay for what you use ― many components do not need to run 24/7.

Easy to Operate

Ideal for protection against infrastructure and environmental issues, including social distancing protocols.

Agile and Scalable

Flexibility to build the DR ecosystem you need, with the ability to meet new requirements as things change over time.

Back up more or fewer channels as/when needed, or stop everything in seconds.

Safe and Secure

Protects against cyberattacks.

Rely on built-in safeguards, security, encryption, and data protection systems.

Being isolated from the main infrastructure gives that added level of security.

Leveraging Aviator for Your DR Ecosystem

Select the business continuity approach that best aligns with your technical requirements and budget.

There are different tiers of protection — leverage Aviator to define the different parameters to determine the size of your safety net and operate your DR channels with freedom!

RTO (Recovery Time Objective)
The maximum acceptable delay between the interruption of service and restoration of service.
This objective determines what is considered an acceptable time window when service is unavailable and is defined by the organization.

RPO (Recovery Point Objective)
The maximum acceptable amount of time since the last data recovery point.
This objective determines what is considered an acceptable loss of data between the last recovery point and the interruption of service and is defined by the organization.

Backup & Restore

A DR system that is in hibernation mode until needed. Leverages Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to deploy all Aviator core services and associated cloud resources.

Maximize cost efficiency with minimum consumption
Roll out only in case of emergencies
Log in at any time for maintenance or tests

Core Services*: permanently at rest

Playout Channels: permanently stopped

Synchronization Workflows: none

Failover (switching operations between the main site and the DR site):

Deploy the core services with predefined IaC scripts
Manually spin up the necessary number of channels
Manually load playlists and content

Pilot Light

A DR system where the Aviator core services are always available, but no channels are running. Run the minimum infrastructure, optimizing costs and consumption, and significantly reduce the time required to have it operational (compared to “Backup & Restore”).

Manage cost and consumption efficiency
Ramp up channels quickly and with ease, only when you need
Start/stop channels on demand during planned maintenance windows

Core Services*: permanently running

Playout Channels: permanently stopped

Synchronization Workflows: media content (assets) and metadata (DB data) are synchronized asynchronously (e.g., once a week, once a day, once every 12 hours) which minimizes future failover times

Failover:

Manually spin up the necessary number of channels
Manually load playlists and content

Warm Standby

A DR system where you define the minimum number of channels that need to always be running, guaranteeing delivery of the most critical services.

Maximize protection of the most important channels while reducing costs of the remaining ones
Leverage a group of spare channels instead of having to duplicate all of them via the “shared backup” functionality

Core Services*: permanently running

Playout Channels: some channels’ instances are permanently running. These channels represent:

Either a subset of the total number of channels running on the main system
Or the most critical channels (the ones generating the highest ad revenue)

Synchronization Workflows: media content (assets), metadata (DB data) and automation schedules are synchronized regularly (e.g., every hour) which significantly reduces the RPO (compared to previous tiers)

Failover:

Optional: N+M channel redundancy (N main channels + M redundant channels). The redundant channels form a pool of shared backup engines, ready to take over when any of the main channels fail.
Alternatively, a handful of very-important channels are always in sync

Hot Standby (Active/Active Multi-Site)

A DR system that mirrors the main system on premises. All existing channels are running 24/7 in the cloud, keeping all services and contents in sync with automated workflows.

Achieve maximum protection
Have two full systems permanently running in parallel (main and DR)
Ensure seamless failover between systems (no downtime)

Core Services*: permanently running

Playout Channels: all channel instances are permanently running

Synchronization Workflows: media content (assets), metadata (DB data) and automation schedules are synchronized permanently (live synchronization)

Failover:

Automatic, based on configurable failure criteria
Manually triggered by operators from a simple control panel

*Core Services
The Aviator backend, encompassing web servers, databases, containerized applications and more.
Core Services hosts the Aviator Platform web UI, a single pane of glass for all playout automation and master control operations and monitoring.

Aviator Make TV for DR Deployments.

Playout Engine Deployment Manager to roll out, terminate, start, stop, and configure channels on demand
Channel Orchestration application to fine-tune different channel redundancy topologies
Schedule Synchronization and Traffic Translation tools to coordinate playlists between on-prem and DR channels, supporting both online and offline synchronization workflows
Workflow Manager to tailor content/metadata synchronization workflows from on-prem systems and storage solutions
Integrated playout engines with predefined configuration templates, adapting to the complexity of each playout channel (Essentials, Standard or Premium Aviator Make TV channels)
Customizable dashboards for streamlined operations and exhaustive monitoring
Playlist Control and AsRun Viewer applications to drive playlists and reconcile the schedules that are broadcast from the DR site
Content Management tools to prepare media assets and content