The unique Pharos Information Centre is a web-based engineering tool for managing, monitoring, diagnosing and resolving issues across the Pharos system.
System management
The Pharos Information Centre contains the tools necessary to perform software upgrades, and also to easily roll-back changes where necessary. The Pharos Version Manager holds copies of all software versions on the Core subsystems. The Subsystem Manager can then be used to activate any available software version. Since the software is uploaded once and held centrally on the system, deployment time is significantly reduced.
By delivering the interface to a web-browser, Pharos engineers can easily perform remote upgrades. The same intuitive interface allows Pharos Accredited customer engineers to perform upgrades themselves.
The Pharos Configuration editor is also available through the Information Centre; this again allows both Pharos engineers and Pharos accredited customer engineers to configure the system easily. The Pharos Sentinel application ensures all software is correctly running on each subsystem, and can be used to manually halt and restart applications, enabling troubleshooting and configuration changes to take effect.
A selection of manual actions can also be initiated from the Information Centre. For example the system active side can be switched over, and delete rules can be activated. All mission critical functions are password protected to ensure they are not invoked accidentally. All of this system management is achieved without opening a Linux terminal. The whole system can therefore be configured and maintained using any standard web browser.
Real-time monitoring
System status is easily monitored from the Information Centre using the alarm alerter applet and the alarm viewer. Alarms can be generated for various issues including,
- Communications error with device
- Playlist running out of schedule
- Transfer failed
- Database error
- SNMP messages from other system and devices.
The alarm applet is always available in the top right of the browser window, ensuring the operator is notified immediately of any alarms. Clicking on this opens the alarm viewer. This gives detailed information on the alarm, and the operator can mark the alarm as receiving attention. Alarms which would cause outages can also be displayed on a hardware alarm panel; this lights up and gives an audible warning when these alarms occur.
It is clear that there could be multiple possible alarms across the system. Any of these could activate and the operator may not know which part of transmission will be affected. To aid operators, Pharos has implemented a system called Alarm grouping. Alarms can be grouped together logically, for example around channels or devices. For example the following alarms could be grouped together for a channel,
- Playlist running out of schedule
- Playout server has insufficient free space
- Lost communications with playout server
- Event failed to cue
- Lost communications with graphics server
Once grouped together, this group can be assigned to a button on the hardware panel, giving immediate channel or device specific notification of a potential problem.
The Pharos Info Centre alarms can also be sent as SNMP messages to other systems ensuring a centralised place for alerts to be displayed.
Diagnostics
The Pharos Info Centre is essential for investigating issues in the system. Due to the complexity of the transfer management system architecture, there are several applications that are required for transfers to reach the relevant destination. These include the Sequence Request Generator (SRG), Transfer Request Manager (TRM), Transfer Manager and the device proxies. Each application provides detailed information in the Info Centre enabling engineers to diagnose and fix faults easily.
Devices drivers provide detailed status, showing device status, and where appropriate the playout store they contain.
Summary
The Pharos information centre is an invaluable tool for managing a Pharos system. The web-based interface allows access anywhere, enable fast support and rapid issue resolution. The system also provides a comprehensive alarm monitoring solution that provides supervisors and operators with real-time updates and alerts.