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Aggregator

Keep Your RF Plant Cool, Clean and Well-Grounded

Radio World
3 years 6 months ago

Jeff Welton is Nautel’s regional sales manager for the central U.S., but that job title doesn’t capture his better-known role as “go-to” guy for technical tips, problem-solving and entertaining public presentations.

The industry has caught on. In 2018 he received the Society of Broadcast Engineers James C. Wulliman Educator of the Year Award. In 2019 the Association of Public Radio Engineers handed him the APRE Engineering Achievement Award. And in 2020 he received the NAB Radio Engineering Achievement Award.

This conversation is from the Radio World ebook “Mission-Critical: Maintaining Your Transmitter Site.”

RW: When we’re talking about maintaining a site for broadcast radio operators, you have a philosophy.

Welton: I’m a guy who works for a transmitter company, but it’s a good philosophy for almost any electronic installation. The three principle tenets are: Keep it cool, keep it clean and keep it well grounded.

RW: There are hundreds of things we could talk about to meet those goals. Where do you start?

Welton: My wife likes to say that I can spot a butterfly half a mile away and go chasing it off into the wilderness, totally losing my train of thought. It’s easier for me to pick a specific task and approach that first.

A FLIR infrared camera attachment lets Jeff take quick visual temperature readings.

I might walk into a facility and look at airflow direction and check to make sure that the air is going to the actual intake so the equipment that needs to be cooled. Or I might go in with a temperature meter — a Fluke infrared temperature sensor, or I’ve got one of the FLIR infrared camera attachments for my cellphone, it’s a wonderful tool — and do temperature readings to spot checks throughout the facility to see if there are any hotspots that may need additional air flow.

I may do another trip and just do a look-around and open a panel or two. If you’re seeing piles of dirt building up in your equipment, that’s a hint and a half that something needs to be done with air pressure and filtering. You look for the clues as you go. Obviously lightning protection and grounding are easiest. Stuff’s blowing up? You need to do more of it.

RW: Have you found that having fewer engineers coming into the business and fewer people who understand RF has made this a lot harder?

Welton: It does make it a little more challenging. With younger folks being so oriented toward IT and IP addresses, management [may forget] there’s still a big, heavy piece of equipment out there that generates heat and needs a lot of cooling and some maintenance.

We’ve been doing Tuesday webinars on maintenance and mentoring; you can find the archives on the Nautel website.

In addition to newer engineers who aren’t so intimately familiar with the big, heavy, glowing stuff, a lot of managers are working with lower budgets. When you’re running low on time and money, you’re not going to put as many resources towards maintenance — the oil changes, if you will.

Keep spares of any “mission critical” components. Managers, ask your engineer what they could not do without in an emergency.

But most people wouldn’t think of going 80,000 miles without changing the oil on their car, so why would you let the transmitter, which generates all the revenue or underwriting for your station, go for a full year without any maintenance whatsoever?

Especially in the year of COVID, where every day became a series of remote broadcasts as on-air hosts and DJs got moved to their living rooms, engineering gets stretched really thin, going from a couple of remote broadcasts a week to half a dozen a day. The resources for site maintenance and transmitter maintenance get stretched even thinner.

But you can’t leave the air filters in the transmitter until they’re covered with a half-inch of crud.

RW: Is that the most common problem you’re hearing about?

Welton: It’s a bunch of things. High winds get into ventilation systems because exhaust fans failed and weren’t putting the air out, so the wind blew the rain back into the transmitter.

I’ve had one that got snowed on. Several leaky roofs, several lightning-damaged systems as a result of lack of maintenance on the grounding system.

It’s more from a lack of attention or personal presence at the site to catch these things before they become an issue. Some of it may be purely financial. A new transmitter at a low-power level costs a couple of thousand dollars, an engineer costs tens of thousands, so do the math; it’s cheaper to replace the transmitter every so often. It’s a conscious decision in some cases. In other cases, “We got busy and forgot.”

RW: What is the recommended frequency of visiting a remote site for general inspection?

Welton: If I’ve got a site in a cornfield in Iowa, where I’m dealing with windblown dust on a regular basis, it needs to be visited once a month, especially in the summer. If I’ve got a sealed air-conditioned facility and a company was contracted to come in to clean the heat exchanger coils, I may visit that once a year.

Inspect towers by night, and by day, checking paint as well as lights. Know whom to notify if lights are out.

I’ve done Mississippi in cottonwood season; if you’re running a forced air system, you’re going to be down there every couple of weeks in July and August.

It will depend on your sites; but there needs to be a schedule and you can’t vary from it too much.

RW: Let’s imagine getting ready to go to a site for a monthly inspection. What’s in your kit?

Welton: The number one tool is the two-foot bolt cutters! I call it the skeleton key — for when a power company guy changed locks around my lock at a multi-access site.

Then my infrared camera, which I can attach to my cellphone. I can power it up as I walk in the building, and point it at the power panels and run it over the coax, looking for any hotspots before I’ve even unpacked my gear.

A caveat is that you need to have a non-reflective surface. Especially with laser-guided infrared cameras, reflective paint can skew the readings. (I’m Canadian so I like hockey tape, a cloth-based tape with matte finish that sticks really well; you can stick that on your electrical panel.)

After the temperature sensor, a small kit of hand tools with a knuckle-buster — a crescent wrench or adjustable wrench.

With stuff coming in from overseas, I’m going to want a combination of metric and Imperial tools.

A Leatherman or Gerber [multi-tool], at your preference, so you’ve got Phillips and flathead screwdrivers.

If I knew I’d be looking at air filters, I’d want a full set of air filters and belts for the blowers already at the transmitter site, or in my toolkit.

I carry a first aid kit, rather than putting electrical tape, an old paper towel or shop rag on our finger when we cut it. I am known for sticking my fingers in places I probably shouldn’t have stuck them.

RW: Ideally you would bring someone with you for safety reasons, but that’s probably not practical for a lot of stations.

Welton: The person doesn’t have to be RF-trained. Have somebody there, show them where the circuit breaker is in case you get connected across something you shouldn’t be connected across.

They need to be able to call 911, whether it’s a landline or a cell phone, depending on the service area. A lot of sites tend to be above cell coverage. But have a way to reach emergency services.

Beyond that, they’re there to make sure you don’t do anything foolish. Ideally somebody who doesn’t distract you from what you’re doing.

A lot of engineers take their significant other. Or grab the general manager. It’s good to have the GM go. I still run into GMs who don’t know where their site is.

RW: If time is limited and you’re doing a regular visit rather than responding to a specific problem, what are you checking?

Welton: Anything that handled air — whether it’s a filtered air intake, an open-air intake transmitter, air filters, heat exchanger coils on an air conditioning system. Check the cooling system, whatever it happened to be.

While reliable cooling is important, remember that an air conditioner that is oversized for your space may cause condensation and mold.

Listen for blower belts that might be starting to squeak or getting a little persnickety.

If it’s a generator site, I’d run the generator to make sure it started. On a regular basis, you also need to do a full load test and switch the whole site over to generator.

Check the foliage. Look for carcasses like snakes or other kind of vermin in and out of the building.

If it’s an AM, I’m glancing at the base insulator and taking a quick check on guy wire anchors. Just do a physical once-over. Walk around.

RW: You’ve probably seen things that made you shake your head.

Welton: A few. I walked into one site where I was convinced, by the end of the visit, that the engineer was trying to find a way to commit suicide. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. Open panels, bypassed interlocks, the tuning unit had overgrown to the point you were running a risk of tripping or falling just going into the antenna enclosure.

He had been unwell and somebody had been covering; but it was a collection of “This is not really good.”

For the most part, people take pride in their facilities. But there are times when you’ll see pieces of Schedule 90 conduit lying on the floor waiting for somebody to step on them, go for a ride, bang their head on a cabinet and lay there unconscious until somebody finds them.

The safety thing is critical. I don’t go into any site where I’m going to be touching electrical stuff without safety shoes on. It’s just a given. They’re a cheap investment and good insurance.

But if you look at the number of engineers found at transmitter sites, most of the time it wasn’t electricity that killed them. It was a trip and a fall and bang your head on something, or a heart attack, or an intruder.

We get too busy doing things. You put in a full day at the studio or in meetings, and then a transmitter goes down, and you spend the next 12 hours at the transmitter site. Sometimes you need to know when it’s time to pull the plug and say, “I’m too tired to do this coherently, and I’m a danger to myself and my equipment.”

RW: You’re not doing the station any good if you get yourself killed —

Welton: Right.

RW: Or yourself.

Welton: Well —

RW: Go ahead.

Welton: Somebody used to say, “Nobody ever died from a lack of rock ’n’ roll.”

RW: Are there common questions or service issues that come up?

Welton: I get a lot of questions on grounding. If you’re laying on a new site and want a good resource to get started, I refer people to the grounding for transmitter stations paper in the Resources tab of our website. Or Google the Motorola R56 standard. It goes into massive detail. If you follow that, you’re probably going to have the best grounded facility you can have.

Stock your site with emergency supplies like drinking water, paper towers, cleaning wipes and first aid kit, and if the site is remote, consider a survival kit. For ideas, see fivegallonideas.com/emergency-kit. (Getty Images)

One of the biggest questions I get is when somebody is putting a new piece of equipment into a facility that they’ve owned for decades and that has seen several transmitters, several engineers, and things have been laid on top of other things. Sometimes you need to assess whether it’s best to rip it all out and start again or whether you can add without creating loops and more challenges. Just take the time to sit down and assess where you are before you start.

The bulk of what we see in emergency situations? You’re not going to stop an “out-of-a-blue 200,000 amp lightning strike,” but the vast majority of [problems] could have been prevented by scheduled site visits and replacement cycles.

Everybody’s like, “Oh, the transmitter guy’s saying buy a new transmitter.” Well, I’m not saying buy a new transmitter this week. But when you have a piece of gear that’s 40 years old, you probably should be starting to think about the time to get a new one. And the best time is not when it’s got smoke coming out the top of it.

RW: We’ve all heard stories about an engineer finding a bullet hole in a pressurized line. That makes me think about the question of personal safety. Are a lot of clients going up there with a sidearm?

Welton: I’m a Canadian, which is an unarmed American with health insurance. I’m not really qualified to answer that. But I grew up in a farm country with guns, and when we went back in the woods, typically we had a weapon with us of some sort, whether it was for vermin control or because we had bears back there.

The Alaskan folks, you better have a sidearm going up there because running into a Kodiak bear is going to make for a bad day.

Sometimes it’s not the rural sites. Some of the urban locations I’ve been to — I was at a site in Houston where they had double razor wire fencing, and you had to go in through the outer gate, and the inner gate wouldn’t open until the outer gate was closed.

Again, it’s situational. I’ve got sites in Wyoming where I wouldn’t think anything of driving in there at one o’clock in the morning. You might see a bighorn sheep.

If you’re coming to a facility, you’re not familiar with, do it during the day until you get a feel for the area.

RW: There’s so much we could talk about — documentation or stocking the facility with emergency supplies.

Welton: Oh my goodness. Documentation. You said that and my eyes lit up.

So often, things are done with no hint of a note as to what was done or why. Document everything.

The older I get, the less inclined I am to remember why I did whatever I did 20 years ago. Also, for the value of the station — at some point somebody is going to look at this going, “What was he thinking?”

Welton suggests you label everything with serial numbers, service dates, what plugs go where, transmitter TPO etc. Shown is a Sanford RHINO 5200 Label Printer kit.

[At one time] you walked into a site, the first thing you did was sign into the logbook; and before you left, you filled in notes on everything you did. We need to get back to that.

With tools like Evernote, you can do audio transcription or attach photos, put in handwritten notes and have character recognition — tools like that on a cellphone are huge.

Now, doing a full spreadsheet, a list of every wire in the facility, starting from scratch, that’s going to take some time; but it takes a lot less to update it as you go than it does five years from now to have to create it from nothing.

So, document, document, document.

RW: Is there a section of the Nautel website you want people to be aware of?

Welton: When you go to the support page, there are links to “how-to” videos. If the service guys get regular calls on something they’ll create a short how-to video for our YouTube channel.

And there’s the latest software. Things we used to do with bags of resistors, capacitors and a sheet of instructions are done with software updates now, so you can find the latest software, read through the release notes to see if it applies to your situation. And my “Tips and Tricks” articles, the quarterly Waves newsletter that we put out.

RW: Final thoughts, Jeff.

Welton: The laptop is less a luxury item than a necessary tool. Obviously we pioneered this with the AUI back in the early 2000s, but more and more equipment will have features that you can access over an IP connection that you won’t necessarily have access to from the front panel.

For a contract engineer, you almost can’t do your job properly without a station or personal laptop or a tablet anymore. Some sort of electronic device that you can plug into an RJ-45 connection.

A Few More Tips

Here’s a further sampling from Welton’s “Tips and Tricks” presentations:

  • Steel wool is an effective barrier to vermin when stuffed in gaps and cracks.
  • Keep a full set of spare keys where they are easy to find. You will need them eventually.
  • Change default passwords on all equipment.
  • Use a VPN. There are free ones listed at techradar.com/vpn/best-free-vpn, but paid ones can be very affordable.
  • Keep spare batteries handy and remember they have a shelf life. Change frequently on smoke detectors and any key components where batteries provide backup.
  • Provide backups to your STL or other primary link. Is there a redundant method of control?
  • Take advantage of the Alternative Broadcast Inspection Program to check yourself and to help keep your staff aware of relevant rules.

The post Keep Your RF Plant Cool, Clean and Well-Grounded appeared first on Radio World.

Paul McLane

Open Video System Order, Digital Broadcasting

FCC Media Bureau News Items
3 years 6 months ago
OVS Order

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Applications

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Pleadings

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An ABC Radio Network Entertainment Reporter’s Star Dishes

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

ABC Radio Network entertainment reporter Bill Diehl is out with a book.

’50 Years Of Celebrity Chatter (Or The Time I interviewed A Porn Star Naked)‘ has stories and quotes from almost all the well-knowns he’s talked with over the years.

Diehl dug deep into his archives for the collection, bringing back great memories, “It’s been a great ride,” said Diehl.

Among those chiming in on Diehl’s career: Barbara Walters.

“Bill Diehl has interviewed me countless times over the course of our respective careers,” she said. “His knowledge of the entertainment business is vast and his insight is always keen.”

The book is available on Amazon. It is available in paperback form for $12.95, and on Kindle devices for $7.95.

— Radio Ink

RBR-TVBR

Reflections on 2020, From the FCC Chairwoman

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago
This holiday season once again may look a little different than many of us might have imagined. But with vaccines widely available in the United States, many more of us have been able to reunite with family and friends during the past year. As FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel sees it, “The personal networks that have supported us through these days have been important, as have the communications networks that make it possible for so many of us to stay in touch, stay working, stay healthy, stay informed, and stay entertained.”

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RBR-TVBR

AT&T Motion to Dismiss Denied in Circle City Spat

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

Two motions filed by AT&T and DirecTV against the owner of Indianapolis’ MyNetworkTV and The CW Network affiliates that sought to dismiss a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against the MVPD service providers have been denied by the Chief Judge of Indiana’s Federal District Court.

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Adam Jacobson

Report: Teheran Cyberterrorists Behind CMG Attack

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

In June, several Cox Media Group radio and television stations fell victim to a vicious cyberattack. Audio streaming was nonfunctioning for weeks. Some TV stations had extreme difficulties in producing a live, local newscast. The company didn’t comment on what was wrong. Now, new information has surfaced as to who the culprit is behind the cyberincursion.

All arrows point to Iran.

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Adam Jacobson

NATPE Miami Preview? NBCU Inks Ukraine Distribution Deal

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

Is a harbinger of a strong programming sales market in 2022, and a healthy transactions marketplace at the upcoming NATPE Miami conference?

Television and Radio Broadcasting Company Ukraine, part of media holding Media Group
Ukraine, has signed a three-year contract deal with NBCUniversal Global Distribution for exclusive rights to broadcast its content in the eastern European nation.

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RBR-TVBR

How Was The August 11 EAS Test?

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

On August 11, 2021, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in coordination with the FCC, conducted a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) using only the broadcast-based distribution system, otherwise known as the “EAS daisy chain.”

As FEMA explained, “[t]he intent of conducting the test in this fashion is to determine the capability of the [EAS] to deliver messages to the public in event that dissemination via
internet is not available.”

How did this sixth EAS nationwide test go?

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Adam Jacobson

ATSC Looks Ahead To CES Splash

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

As 2021 comes to a close, NEXTGEN TV service is available to half of all U.S. television viewers — assuming they’ve shelled out hundreds of dollars as the economy hurtles into recessionary uncertainty.

For ATSC President Madeleine Norland, however, “next year is promising to carry forward the tremendous momentum.”

The PR push and continued quest to convince consumers that NEXTGEN TV is worth the investment enters 2022 on a strong note, indeed, as Norland others tied to ATSC will be in Las Vegas for the pandemic-plagued CES 2022 event.

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RBR-TVBR

Is AM Radio Future-Proof? Saying No To DAB Impacts the Answer

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION

As 2021 comes to a close, the subject of AM radio’s continued viability in the coming years has arose anew, driven by the decision of companies including Cumulus Media to surrender the licenses of stations that have had their fair share of challenges.

While some may shed a tear over these station’s final broadcasts, there is a bigger, more fundamental question that needs to be asked: Did the U.S. radio broadcast industry fail to future-proof itself when it decided to embrace in-band, on-channel HD Radio instead of progressing to DAB, which much of Europe and Australia have adopted? 

Yes, and no.

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Adam Jacobson

Cumulus Adds To AM Station Death Count

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

In October 2020, Cumulus Media made an executive decision as to whether or not the transmitter for a pair of AM radio stations serving Savannah, Ga., should be repaired, or if it was more prudent to surrender the licenses of the facilities. Cumulus chose the latter, with WBMQ-AM 630 and WJLG-AM 900 disappearing from the Coastal Empire radio dial.

Now, Cumulus has decided to terminate the life of another AM radio station — this time in a hurricane recovery zone.

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Adam Jacobson

The InFOCUS Podcast: Marianne Vita

Radio+Television Business Report
3 years 6 months ago

Of the topics that have continued to attract the attention of broadcast media’s C-Suite leaders across 2021, addressable advertising is poised to remain front and center as a big concentration point in 2022. With video-on-demand a leader in addressable advertising, how can OTA and VOD collide, providing broadcast media with some solid revenue opportunities in the coming years?

That’s just one question Marianne Vita, SVP and Director of Integrated Strategy and Marketing at the VAB, answers in this fresh podcast arriving just in time for CES 2022, and the upcoming Matrix Media Ad Sales Summit and NATPE Miami in Miami Beach, Fla.

The InFOCUS Podcast is hosted by Adam R Jacobson, with the support of dot.FM.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Marianne Vita” on Spreaker.

RBR-TVBR

BDI RF Power Monitors at Work

Radio World
3 years 6 months ago

The Dec. 22 issue of Radio World features our Buyer’s Guide for antennas, RF support and power products. Buyer’s Guide features application stories like this one.

Here’s an example of how Broadcast Devices DPS-100D series RF power monitors are being used in an FM combiner installation.

“Pictured are two DPS-100D-3-1/8 RF power monitors at the input to a two-station FM combiner for WEZN and WEBE in Connecticut,” the company wrote.

“Both meters can report forward and reflected power, temperature and line pressure and also provide positive interlock control to either transmitter. Each transmission line and combiner module is protected against VSWR fault at the combiner input. This was an important feature for customer consideration.”

Cat-5 cables attached provide user monitor/remote control and provides electrical power via passive POE. A third meter not shown monitors the output of the combiner, and all three meters can be connected to an SWP-206D Supervisory chassis for complete monitor and control of the entire system.

BDI said all of its products support SNMP for integration to third-party remote controls and software. DPS-100D series power monitors are available in all EIA line sizes plus others like N, DIN and the popular 4-1/16-inch line size.

The DPS-100D series meter is suitable for monitoring one transmitter or a combined system, particularly for multi-station and digital radio transmission.

The photo was provided by BDI installer Xenirad Broadcast Engineering.

Info: www.broadcast-devices.com or call (914) 737-5032..

The post BDI RF Power Monitors at Work appeared first on Radio World.

RW Staff

Trends in Transmitters 2022

Radio World
3 years 6 months ago

The quality of professional broadcast transmitters available today is unquestionably high. That’s good news for radio engineers and managers who are in the market for a new one.

If someone hasn’t purchased a transmitter in a while, what should they know? What are the most important recent developments in how they are designed and manufactured?

In Radio World’s latest free ebook, we asked engineers, managers and our sponsoring manufacturers to comment. We asked how a smart buyer can differentiate among products; what features they value most; and what features or services they’d like to see added.

We asked about the impact of virtualization on transmitters, and what buyers should know about hybrid radio platforms that are coming into the marketplace. And we sought an update on technologies like MDCL and liquid cooling.

Learn from technology veterans Rob Bertrand, Andy Gunn, Mark Persons, Cris Alexander, Mike Cooney, Buc Fitch, Mike Martin, Greg Dahl and Don Stevenson, as well as from manufacturers WorldCast Systems, Broadcast Electronics, GatesAir, Nautel and Rohde & Schwarz.

 

 

The post Trends in Transmitters 2022 appeared first on Radio World.

RW Staff

Kubernetes Brings Broadcast to Next Level

Radio World
3 years 6 months ago

The author is Chief Technology Officer of 2wcom. This article originally appeared in the ebook “What’s Next for Virtualization?”

Virtualizing software, especially using containers, makes it much easier to run the software on standard server hardware instead of dedicated broadcast devices.

It is a very good exercise to build platform independent software. It definitely was an exercise for us at 2wcom when we migrated our embedded software that was designed for a four-channel audio over IP codec hardware (IP-4c).

But after that was achieved, it helped us to realize a project where approximately 400 height units of equipment could be reduced to just six rack spaces of servers — including redundancy!

As we are diving deeper into the virtual rabbit hole named Kubernetes, it becomes clearer that virtualization was just the beginning.

Why do broadcasters need Kubernetes?

Kubernetes — “K8s” for short — is an open-source platform to manage containers, services, and workloads across multiple physical machines. It is the state-of-the-art platform to manage containers and is used by Netflix, Google, Spotify and many more.

But why do we need this in our broadcast world? — Because it helps a lot to fulfil some of our daily requirements: reliability, scalability, updates and monitoring.

Reliability

Kubernetes is self-healing! This is a major advantage over traditional systems where just backups and redundancy are defined.

Using K8s it is possible to evade entire machines in disaster scenarios. If for example one of your servers is crashing or has a disk pressure condition, the other servers (also known as worker nodes) can take over the service for the machine that is failing.

Even though this process might not be seamless, it is self-healing because K8s tries to maintain the same number of services and containerized apps that you have defined.

Together with a sophisticated redundancy scheme, the broadcaster can achieve seamless switching and zero downtime even while replacing entire machines in the cluster.

Scalability

Let’s say your CPU load requirements for one of your apps increases, because you want to transcode an additional audio/video stream for monitoring purposes.

2wcom’s MoIN orchestration overview hides Kubernetes complexity.

Without Kubernetes, the operator will likely have to install a new server and move some of the app instances from each running computer to this new server. This frees up resources on all machines, enabling the additional monitoring stream. Managing that process can be a high workload and requires extensive planning.

With Kubernetes this is as simple as installing a new server and letting it join the cluster with just one simple command:

kubeadm join [api-server-endpoint]

After that the operator just needs to push the new configuration and its resource requirements into the cluster (in Kubernetes called limits and requests).

Updates

Everybody working in IT knows that updates can be time-consuming and the cause of a lot of troubles. Kubernetes really helps to deploy software updates because it lets you define strategies to do that.

One strategy could be to update 25% of your containerized apps at the same time and roll that update through the cluster. This gives the user time to react and roll back the update in problematic situations.

Additionally, the update can therefore maintain seamless redundancy with no manual switching required. The maximum “surge” that defines how many of your app instances are updated at the same time can be defined by an admin who is deploying the update.

Another update strategy could be to push a new version into your cluster and let the individuals who are controlling and using your software decide when to apply the new version. In our case this was a very nice feature.

An administrator can push the new software version into the cluster whenever it is approved. The operator who configures only his audio streams can simply reboot an instance at any time when it is suitable. The reboot will automatically apply the updated version while keeping the same config.

Monitoring

Operating a huge cluster instead of hundreds of individual hardware boxes can be fearsome. It all relies on a couple of machines instead of hundreds. But Kubernetes can seriously increase the speed of a root-cause analysis and fixing of a bug instead of making it more complex as one might think.

Screenshot of a MoIN Grafana dashboard that monitors audio errors and internal buffer values.

A great advantage is that standardized mechanisms can be used to obtain logs from different parts of the software. These logs can even be used by an indexing search engine (for example Elasticsearch), which lets you search and correlate the log files many times faster. Therefore, one can find common failures across multiple instances easier.

Let’s say you need to find a reason why SNMP connections break down. In that case you could search through all log files of all software parts for an entry of “snmp”. The result will quickly show you the number of found entries and you can explore the relationship and chronological sequence of the errors.

Setting up such systems is time-consuming, but with a Kubernetes installation the vendor can also provide the monitoring stack, like we do it at 2wcom. We are providing Elesticsearch, Kibana and Grafana as a very sophisticated monitoring stack that integrates well with our software.

Conclusion

Although the shift towards virtualization can be scary because it is such a different environment than physical devices, it provides some valuable improvements and streamlined processes to operate a high-quality broadcast system.

The streamlined processes provided by Kubernetes reduce the maintenance overhead of a broadcast system, which leads to lower operational expenses or frees up resources to do what really matters: delivering high-quality broadcast content.

The post Kubernetes Brings Broadcast to Next Level appeared first on Radio World.

Leif Cipriani

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