Using Backup or 3rd Party Applications with Cablecast

Users should be cautious when using any third party tool on their Cablecast appliances. This includes backup software as well as security software such as endpoint protection and antivirus.

The reason for the caution is that these tools can use significant resources, or interfere with normal operation. For instance Dropbox may compress files before uploading to save bandwidth. This compression could may use significant CPU resources to compress the files. This could steal CPU cycles from video server playback leading to poor playback experience.

Another potential issue is backup software could lock the file while backing up. This could interfere with Cablecast operations such as renaming, overwriting encodes, etc.

Due to the large number of potential backup solutions, we can’t not certify individual products, but can offer some recommendations.

• Limit the backup to just the content folder. Don’t include subfolders that may contain temporary / scratch directories used by TRMS software.
• Limit backup operations to off hours, especially when encodes would be unlikely, 1am to 5am for example.
• If the software in question has advanced settings, review them, and disable options like “compression” that might use more system resources. While the upload will take more bandwidth, it will be less likely to interrupt Cablecast operations.