How to Improve Live Video Workflows Through Optimized Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) can be an effective tool for improving live video workflows. In a recent interview with Streaming Media's Tim Siglin at Streaming Media East 2022, Zixi CEO Gordon Brooks explains how Zixi's specialized Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP) optimizes RCA to streamline live video workflows, irrespective of the underlying network infrastructure.
“We have a Software-Defined Video Platform which moves live broadcast quality, low latency, high availability video, live or live linear. We have an orchestration plane to manage that, and we have something called IDP--our Intelligent Data Platform,” Brooks explains. He also highlights that Zixi currently has about 700 media customers in over 100 countries.
The key advantage of Zixi’s services is to eliminate instances of lengthy personnel meetings to determine video technical issues. Zixi’s automation is at the core of optimizing RCA. “If something does happen,” Brooks says, “you can immediately look at it. The system will analyze all the data.” He notes that even though around 20% of root causes cannot be immediately determined, the system will “pull all the charts, graphs, and the logs required, then allow you to see the whole channel chain, the sources, and the targets and all the software, and where the issue was. That's what we call the ‘blast radius.’” All of this data can be sent to an RCA reporter, which includes charts and logs locked into the same timeframe. This allows quick team collaboration for problem-solving, and the information can be printed out as a PDF and sent around electronically.
Siglin also notes that when Brooks previously worked in other industries and examined the way that the process industry functioned, he started down a path thinking he was going in one direction, but the data gave him unexpected insight.
“RCA was not something we originally thought about,” Brooks says. He elaborates that a "channel" is not a real thing in and of itself. “You've got software components, virtual components, encoders and decoders and networks, and Zixi software and all these different pieces," he says. The real question is how to take those components apart and best analyze them. “It was a process of the data allowing us to see things in different ways, and we were ‘Aha! We can do this!’”
Learn more about video workflows at Streaming Media West 2022.
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