GMA Networks

Failover

In just two seconds

GMA’s decision was immediate and crystal clear, saying, “There is only one system that can do what we want for our expanded, 4K production operations. And it’s also demonstrated that when it fails over, it won’t stop, or even slow down, which is absolutely crucial to our workflow. We have got to have GB Labs.”

The reason disaster recovery is so crucial is explained in the following and is directly tied to the amount of content GMA wanted to generate.

Protection guaranteed with Cloak DR

Generating massive volumes of content means there is an equally massive responsibility to protect and preserve it. Therefore, failover is crucial, and the system GMA had been using had not only failed to live up to expectations, but was proven incapable of handling the number of people GMA needed to be working from the system.

A solution had to be found because, when disaster strikes, it’s already too late to talk about disaster recovery.

Failover tends to be overlooked by less informed facilities, even though it’s one of the most crucial components for guaranteeing system availability around the clock to meet production and broadcast deadlines.

Fortunately, GMA is not one of those facilities. During the induced failover aspect of the competitive system testing, the negative impact that losing a node had on the incumbent system had zero effect on GB Labs. GMA was savvy enough to know, despite claims by competitors of the infallibility of a cluster approach, that it needed a true DR system from someone who truly understands that failover is essential.

That’s precisely why GB Labs developed Cloak DR, which blankets a system with an impenetrable, protective disaster recovery cloak that offers true, demonstrable resilience and redundancy.

And “resilient” doesn’t mean Cloak DR will “do its best”. GB Labs designed and built Cloak DR to provide no-compromise redundancy by enabling dual GB Labs systems to act as both master and slave. Unlike other systems, GB Labs storage is one hundred percent live. Data written to it is not confirmed until both slave and master have it, which keeps both in-sync

The benefit of that is obvious. If the master suddenly vanishes for any reason, Cloak DR ensures that the slave, at a separate location, takes over with exactly the same IP address and paths as the master in less than two seconds. No other system can match that, and certainly not the one GMA previously had in place.

Yes, other systems can recover from the unexpected, but it’s usually a lengthy, painful and often very expensive process that can take days, which still doesn’t take into consideration the loss of revenue due to downtime, or the loss of precious content, which can take hours, days, even weeks to recover.

But in Cloak DR, GB Labs provides what is expected in terms of redundancy, and that’s resilience, speed, and most importantly, confidence. GMA had exactly those expectations. It was easy to switch GMA from its existing system to a fully operational, safe, and secure GB Labs Cloak DR protected system.

Summary

The speed, resilience, and failover capability of any GB Labs storage system is unparalleled, and those benefits are particularly important to other potential GB Labs storage and Cloak DR users in the region. With the proven success of GB Labs systems at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympics, including large workgroup 4K editing, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics rescheduled to 2021, it is a crucial time to consider how to reliably protect and retain content – at any resolution – particularly in a region known for its dedication to the highest standards of quality, speed, and resilience.

In content creation, production, and delivery, the more you have, the more you stand to lose, but there’s everything to gain if your facility’s performance is accelerated and protected by GB Labs.

It’s the clear winner.