The ZEN Master cloud-based control plane makes for easy management of hundreds of video streams
“The world has really moved to fully cloud-based workflows. Even before things go to broadcast, everything’s being produced in the cloud. This means we now have a dynamic means of acquiring feeds from multiple venues, and sites that serve as the delivery mechanism too – that’s where ZEN Master comes in.” STREAM MANAGEMENT MADE EASY ZEN Master makes it simple to control inputs and outputs for hundreds of live videos and Zixi streams at scale. With just a few clicks – and automatic configuration details for network resources and distribution targets – this broadcast management software allows users to create new live channels and spin up required streams on the fly. “ZEN Master doesn’t only monitor streams, it can provision infrastructure as well,” Shore explains. “It can spin up instances in all the major cloud vendors, and interoperate with tools like AWS Elemental MediaConnect. You can power, connect to and orchestrate MediaConnect flows.”
a CDN egress point, and alerts can be set for specific monitoring thresholds. “It’s about simplification, but not in a dumbed-down way. It takes away the things you don’t need to care about, but still allows you access to them. When you connect to remote system broadcasts, you have them in one single interface, and they’ll report basic statistics and metrics. But, if suddenly the light goes orange or red and there’s a warning, you have the ability to click through to that box and work directly with the issue.” ZEN Master allows for control of edge, network and cloud devices with full telemetry and visualisation of network streams. It does this by offering tools like workflow visualisation, alerting, history, automation, reporting and root-cause analysis across complex supply chains.
Shore stresses that flexibility is at the heart of ZEN Master: “We’ve tried to make it simple – you can stay at the 30,000ft view, or be all the way down in the bottom level. Typically, when going into a cloud back-end toolset, there’s a smorgasbord of 50 operating systems or 200 different instance types. Some folks know that stuff deeply, but we have made an effort to remove complexity, because we already know which instance types are useful for running our software. The system is built in a way where it will make sense to an IT engineer, a traditional NOC worker and the person who is saying, ‘I just need to turn things on and deliver a press conference.’” KEEPING THE SYSTEM HEALTHY The ZEN Master control plane allows users to easily monitor system health, by quickly verifying that all sources are connected and providing content. Via a single UI, an operator can manage an entire workflow, or drill down to monitor networks at the stream and device level. Users can watch feeds in real time from Zixi Broadcaster or
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