Virtual Slicer Appliance for Broadcast Signal Redundancy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional on-air broadcast delivery systems rely on expensive, non-portable, and inflexible hardware-based solutions that do not share server or storage architectures, limiting their scalability and disaster recovery capabilities.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method for virtualizing a slicer server by cloning a virtual machine (VM) from a template, which receives and re-encodes IP signals into a streaming-friendly format, allowing for distribution to clients through a content delivery network, and synchronizing time sequences for accurate playback.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional physical rack-mounted servers are deployed for broadcast delivery, then system reliability is improved through hardware redundancy, but cost and device complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses virtual machine copies (VMs) to replace physical server copies. Instead of deploying multiple expensive physical rack-mounted servers, the system creates virtual copies of a single physical server through virtualization technology. These VM copies provide the necessary redundancy and failover capabilities while sharing the underlying physical hardware resources, thereby maintaining reliability without proportionally increasing hardware complexity and cost.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges multiple virtual server instances onto a single physical server platform. By consolidating multiple broadcast delivery functions into one physical server through virtualization, the system achieves the reliability of having multiple servers while reducing the actual physical hardware count. This merging approach allows resource sharing and eliminates the need for separate physical infrastructure for each server instance.
2Reliability
If physical servers are deployed at secondary locations for disaster recovery, then system reliability is improved, but cost and portability worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables disaster recovery by creating virtual machine copies that can be rapidly deployed to secondary locations. Instead of pre-configuring physical servers at backup sites, the system uses VM image files that can be copied and instantiated anywhere with compatible virtualization infrastructure. This allows disaster recovery capabilities to be established quickly and moved between locations as needed, reducing both cost and deployment complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces dynamic deployability to disaster recovery systems. Virtual machines can be dynamically instantiated, moved, and scaled across different physical locations without fixed hardware constraints. This dynamic approach allows the disaster recovery infrastructure to adapt to changing requirements and be deployed wherever needed, eliminating the rigidity and high cost of fixed secondary location deployments.
3Reliability
If physical servers are used for broadcast delivery, then hardware performance is ensured, but portability and scalability are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical/physical server deployment model with a virtualized software-based model. Instead of moving physical hardware between locations or scaling by adding more physical servers, the system uses virtual machine snapshots and migration capabilities. This substitution allows the broadcast delivery function to be ported across different physical infrastructures without moving actual hardware, greatly enhancing portability while maintaining performance through virtualized resource allocation.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosure provides an approach for virtualizing a slicer server. A slicer program running in a virtual machine receives a multicast Internet Protocol (IP) signal, re-encodes the signal to a streaming-friendly format, and pushes the re-encoded signal to a content distribution network that distributes the video signal to clients either live or on demand. In one embodiment, a new virtual machine including the slicer is cloned from a template for each broadcast channel that is created, with the newly-cloned VM being used to process IP signals for the corresponding broadcast channel. In addition, the slicer running in the VM may transmit to the content delivery network a time sequence indicating when content in the re-encoded signal should be streamed for play out, and the time sequence may be based on a time that is synchronized to an external server.