Disaster recovery is a coordinated process of restoring systems, data and infrastructure, required to support key ongoing business operations. Cloud is a great way for managing the risk.

1. Cloud TV playout for Disaster
Recovery
Gatis Gailis
Chairman of the board, VESet ltd.
17-10-2012

2. Summary
 About VESet
 About Disaster Recovery
 Disaster Recovery site in the cloud
 Summary

3. About VESet
 Founded in 2011 in Latvia
 Aim – to provide cloud based broadcasting
solutions
 Team – TV and IT professionals
 Member of Latvian IT cluster
 Microsoft, Cinegy, Softlab-NSK partner

4. What the business wants?
3 main interests:
 Earn more money
 Cut the expenses
 Manage risks

5. What is Disaster Recovery?
 Usual response – it is system recovery
 But which systems exactly?
 Recovered to where?
 What about people doing the recovery?
 Better definition: Disaster Recovery is a
coordinated process of restoring systems, data
and infrastructure, required to support key
ongoing business operations.

6. Typical approaches to Disaster Recovery
 «We will just restore from backups»
 Where will the restore happen?
 Are your backups good?
 Are your backups offsite?
 How long it will take to get those backups to DR
location?
 Will the equipement be compatible?
 What about remote access, network bandwidth,
data security?
 What about business operations?

7. Disaster Recovery planning
 Create a DR team
 Identify Business Requirements
 Categorize your systems by criticality to business
 Define RTO (Recovery Time Objective) – when do the
most crytical business operations have to be operational
again
 Define RPO (Recovery Point Objective) – how many data
can be lost from the point of failure
 Identify risks
 Fire?
 Natural disasters (eg. earthquake, flood)?
 Loss of infrastructure (network, power, facilities)?
 Hackers?

8. Disaster Recovery for a TV channel
 Crytical business operations
 TV channel broadcast
 Studio
 News
 Live shows
 Aquired content
 Advertisement contracts
 DR site is the only viable option
 If you have just the primary site and that burns
down, then you are out of business

9. Disaster Recovery site
 Should contain
 Playout service
 Disaster recovery playlists
 Content ready to be aired according to playlist
 Titling objects
 Ability to input Live content from DR studio or field
 Remote access
 Available from anywhere
 Encrypted and secured

10. Disaster Recovery site in the cloud
 Consider having your DR site in the cloud
 Geographically diverse from Primary site
 Highly-available
 Broadband network in and out
 No long-term investment into infrastructure, no
upkeep cost

11. How it works – normal operation
TV Production
Playout signal
center
Head end
Cloud provider
DR playlists
Video files
FTP Advertisements
HLS
Titling objects
Playout
server

12. How it works – disaster operation
TV Production
Playout signal
center
Head end
Cloud provider
DR playlists
FTP
DR studio HLS Live feeds
Video files
RDP management HLS
Advertisements
Titling objects
Playout
Field reporters HLS Live feed
server

13. Cloud DR solution – playout
 Playout
 Virtual SDI card for output multiplexing
 Inputs from transcoder
 Media files
 MPEG2
 H.264
 AVI, MXF OP1a, MPG, M2P, M2T etc.
 Builtin titling engine
 Schedule automation, playlists for each day

14. Cloud DR solution - transcoder
 Inputs: HLS
 Outputs: UDP/RTP, HLS, RTSP,
 Rescaling, resampling
 Deinterlacing
 Adaptive streams

15. Cloud DR solution - titling
 Static pictures with alpha
 Animated logos with alpha
 Picture in picture
 Flash, html sources
 Running info line
 Clock
 Banners
 Weather information

16. Cloud playout server - distribution
 HLS – Apple HTTP Live Streaming protocol
 Multicast
 HTTP based, works over firewalls
 Cacheable
 Adaptive
 Has built-in buffering
 Supports SSL and DRM (Verymatrix, static keys)
 Supported by most Content Delivery Networks

17. Summary
 Business has to manage risks
 You need a DR plan
 Only real DR option – backup site
 Cloud is perfect for DR purposes
 Cloud based playout server with actual files
and live capabilities could save your business

18. Thank you!