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
