Network Monitoring - Broadcast Equipment Monitoring

Today’s Broadcast Systems

There is such an array of equipment and you need to watch it all the MTD System gets data from all devices with a parallel collection system.  We get the data by any means… not locked into SNMP and WMI, many systems do not have this capability but MTD Still gets the data.  The discussion below is about satellite data but really involves any large system.  Our data collectors get the data quickly and reliably and present it to you in a way that makes system issues clear.

Today’s Satellite Systems

Many satellite system projects these days involve satellite uplinks with hundreds or perhaps thousands of receivers in the network receiving content from them. Traditionally, if these networks are monitored, the planners rely on SNMP traps for big troubles and plan for round-robin polling and pinging to determine the health of the receivers and other devices.  The applications include digital cinema distribution, teleconference, distance learning, TV broadcast content distribution, digital signage, and the list goes on.

Traditional monitoring systems, because of polling speed, within an hour or two NOC personnel can know whether a device has failed or not and whether the receiver was up, on the right channel with adequate signal level, and locked for the transmission. As to the traps, a little secret: many of the devices do not support traps and if they do traps can be lost because they are sent as UDP traffic with no assured delivery. Requirements for today’s professional satellite systems have evolved to the point where NOC personnel need more information and they need it more quickly. Representative are teleconference, distance learning, and media distribution systems.

For these new systems the requirements for monitoring have moved out of a strictly maintenance need to both a maintenance and operational requirement.

• Teleconference and distance learning have an almost interactive need for status and data:
  1. Is the receiver is on the right channel?
  2. Is the feed good? Are error rates low and the signal level high?
  3. If the signal is low in Milwaukee, what’s the weather like?
  4. Are all of the correct materials downloaded to the receiver?
  5. Are keypads and other data entry devices ready?

• Media distribution systems for broadcast and digital cinema have many of the same needs and some others:
  1. Is there sufficient space on the device to receive the huge files used in these operations?
  2. What is the progress of the transfer (it takes a long time to transfer multi-gigabyte files)?
  3. Did the digital rights management (DRM) keys arrive?
  4. If it is a playout device, did the correct play list arrive?
  5. Can we get the playback logs as events play?
  6. What about maintenance logs, do we have to SSH into each device and retrieve them manually, or will the system automatically gather and check them for us?

These lists are representative of information the NOC needs to ensure proper operation of the network. First and second generation monitoring systems don’t even begin to broach gathering and reporting the new types of information needed to reliably operate these systems.

MTD Systems third-generation network monitoring software is massively parallel with media-aware enhancements that reflect industry needs and our companies TV broadcast roots. All of the data is collected, parsed, centralized, archived, and presented in a way that takes you quickly to points of issue. We not only have traditional tabular views, but maps with active Icons automatically generated from the addresses where the satellite receivers are located, and Google earth views (how cool is that?). You can fly around the world and know within seconds where any difficulty may lie. Drilling in takes you to a device page where data can be seen in detail, current status as well as historic data, site notes, trouble tickets, and the media extensions required. Wrapped around the whole network an aggregation process tracks your media to ensure it is where it needs to be.

MTD Systems satellite network monitoring is not your traditional network monitoring solution but a true third generation advance for satellite teleconference, satellite distance learning, and satellite program delivery systems.

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