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The Failover Channel has been specifically designed for the Live Events feature. As part of this channel, you can select multiple sources and define which one is the Slate source, and from the remaining selected channels which one is the preferred (primary) and which one is not preferred (secondary).

Failover channels are like Pass-Through channels in that they do not involve any actual processing to the stream, but rather creates redundancy by defining parallel streams from multiple Sources as a single entity. This ensures that if one Source becomes inactive the stream will be automatically transmitted from the parallel Source.

How priorities influence the failover process

A failover occurs when a current source has a malfunction and is no longer able to stream or that a high-priority source that went went into error has resumed streaming. This means that the priority level hiaerarchy can influence on when a failover occurs, and if it occurs, to which of the sources it will failover to. In a Failover Channel the priority is as follows:

• Preferred – high
• Non-preferred – medium
• Slate – low

So, the channel will play the preferred source by default. If the preferred source becomes unavailable, it will failover to a non-preffered stream (if one exists). If there is no non-preferred stream of it becomes unavailable (while the preferered stream is still unavailable), Zen Master will failover to the Slate.

How the failover process is overridden by a Live Event

The Failover behavior can be overridden by Live Event configuration. There are some stages of the event, where the Slate is the source that will be streamed. For example, in Pre-live the Live Event is configured to select the Slate source. In the Live event, it will automatically select the preferred source and if the preferred source is not available, it will fall back to a non-preffered source. If neither the non-preferred nor a preferred source is available, it will fall back to a Slate.

The following procedure describes how to add a Failover Channel in ZEN Master. In addition, an explanation of each of the configuration parameters is given in the table below.

To add a Failover channel:

1. In the main navigation, click Channels.
2. Click + Add.
   The Create New Channel selection menu is displayed.
   
3. Click on Failover Channel.
   The Create New Failover Channel window is displayed.
   
4. In the Info section, in the Name field, enter a logical name for the Channel.
5. In the Tags field, select one or more of the predefined Tags from the drop-down list.
   Tags are used for access control. By selecting an Tag, you are relating this Channel to that Tag. Tags are associated with certain roles (through the Users & Roles screen), and roles, in turn, are associated with users and user groups. If you would like to create a new Tag, see Creating a Tag.

6. In the Events Configuration Profile field, select from the dropdown list the profile that you would like to apply to this Channel. By default, the Default profile is applied.

   Info
   Events Profiles consist of a series of rules that determine precisely how various types of Events are logged and what results they trigger.

   
   

7. In the Input section, in the Processing Cluster field, select from the drop-down list one of the Channel Processing clusters that has been configured in ZEN Master. The selected cluster will be used to process this Channel.

   Info
   If the Source does not exist in the cluster, then the cluster will pull the Source automatically.

   
   

8. In the Sources section, add one or more Sources to the Channel and specify whether they should be a Preferred Source (select the Preferred checkbox), a Non-preferred Source (do not select anything) or a Slate Source (select the Slate checkbox. This is done as follows:
   
   1. Find the Source that you would like to add either by scrolling through the list of available Sources or by entering a search word into the Filter If the Source that you would like to add is not yet configured in ZEN Master, see Sources.
   2. Add a Source by clicking the + button next to the Source.
      Selected Sources are shown above the Filter box.
      
   3. Do one of the following:
      1. Select the Preferred checkbox if you would like to designate the Source as preferred source.
      2. Select the Slate checkbox if you would like to designate the source as a Slate.
      3. Do not select any checkbox if you would like to designate the source as a Non-preferred source.
   4. Repeat the above procedure for each Source that you would like to add to the Channel.

   
   

   Info
   If you would like to remove the selected Secondary Source, click on the ‘X’ in the Secondary Source textbox.

   
   

   Info
   All Access Tags that are assigned to the selected Sources are added by default to the Channel.

   
   

9. In the Initial State section, select the Disabled checkbox if you would like to disable this Channel upon initial configuration.

10. Select the Muted checkbox if you would like to disable error/recovery notifications for this Channel upon initial configuration.

    Info
    You can Enable/Unmute the Channel at any time.

    
    

11. Click Save.

Failover Channel Configuration Parameters Table