No matter how reliable the hardware and stable the software is, there’s always a possibility of a module failure or even a human error.
Therefore, it is mandatory for a Broadcast Automation solution to have a fail-safe option, which can be used in case of minor failure or a major disaster to minimize the damage to the program on air.
The FS series of servers have hardware and software mechanisms to provide automatic mirroring of the server operation and failure notification. The Watchdog module can be connected to each of the FS servers via USB in order to provide monitoring and automatic notification for most failures of software and hardware. The notification is provided by closing or opening the GPI output connection, which can be linked to a fail-over switch or similar equipment. However, a truly Reliable Broadcast Automation solution requires significant amount of additional third-party hardware to be included into the solution. That includes, satellite or cable IRD, high speed and high-reliability storage, network as well as failover switch box.
The following diagram shows an example of 1+1 redundancy for a PostPlay (FS1100) server with ability to provide bypass IRD-to-PGM path in the unlikely event of simultaneous malfunction of both systems
