Ontario, Canada-based Masstech, a provider of file-based workflows and transcoding technology, has been granted a U.S. patent for its dynamic Distributed Redundant Adaptive Cluster (DRAC) technology, which was developed in-house. The company's innovation, which is now available in Masstech's TOPAZ (v7.5) asset management system, allows multiple broadcast applications to operate on two or more servers to ensure complete redundancy for mission critical systems.
Addressing the distribution of heavy data loads as well as the risks of potential failure, the patent describes the use of multiple servers to provide failover capability. It also details a way to distribute activities along communication channels for efficiently storing, managing and transferring data load in an archive. Multiple servers can operate in a redundant system failover mode, thus ensuring smooth continuous operation without human intervention.
The two communication channels include one low-cost communication channel, while the other channel is capable of higher data rate (but at a higher cost) communication. DRAC efficiently separates the high-bandwidth data traffic from the lower-bandwidth traffic and also introduces much desired failover redundancy into the broadcast system.
Masstech said broadcasters using the DRAC system can optimize their resources more effectively and can expand the size, scale and bandwidth requirements of any facility.
The company has installed numerous systems incorporating the patented DRAC technology in U.S. broadcast facilities like ESPN (Connecticut and Los Angeles, CA), HBO-LA, ABC (NY), Entertainment Tonight (Lose Angelese, CA), Disney (Los Angeles, CA), and Encompass.