Nevion VideoIPath

VideoIPath is a comprehensive network orchestration system that provides connection management across a variety of networks ranging from international or national contribution networks (WANs and 5G) to broadcast facility, OB-vans or campus infrastructures (LANs, both SDI and IP). It can also be used to control the flow of signals to private or public cloud infrastructures (GCCG) and within a private or public cloud.

The orchestration functionality may be used in combination with the broadcast operations or independently. It manages end-to-end video, audio, and data services across any IP infrastructure. Media nodes are managed using NMOS or vendor specific APIs, while streams are routed across the underlying IP infrastructure using SDN (or alternatively IGMP/PIM).

The system is proven to scale to thousands of nodes, transporting 100,000s media streams across the network.

VideoIPath manages media resources (e.g. encoders, decoders, audio processors, etc) and network resources such as bandwidth and ports optimally. It is aware of existing and planned usage and can route signals accordingly.

VideoIPath includes a scheduling engine that works in conjunction with the resource and bandwidth management to guarantee that scheduled services can be delivered at the activation time. The scheduler supports both recurring and one-time services.

VideoIPath has multiple functions to help guarantee connections of mission-critical services. From simple SMPTE ST 2022-7 to more advanced dual encoder protection, whereby dual senders, paths and receivers can be configured based on one connection in the VideoIPath GUI.

The system includes a redundancy controller that can intelligently re-route services when failures occur in the network or at the edge. The behavior of the redundancy controller is customizable to fit a wide variety of redundancy scenarios.

VideoIPath allows maintenance on links, devices, modules or even ports to be scheduled.

VideoIPath will inform the user about services affected by the maitenance, and provide the option to reroute these sources affected by the maintenance.

VideoIPath can be configured to auto-assign multicast and VLANs to connections from one or multiple pools. When a connection is ended, the multicast or VLAN is released so it can be reused for other services. This removes the possibility of human error in assigning addresses and also gives a more optimized way of using addresses.

VideoIPath comes with a built-in NMOS RDS (Registration and Discovery Server) for easy onboarding of NMOS IS-04 devices. An external 3rd party NMOS registry can also be used.

NMOS IS-05 is also used extensively by VideoIPath to perform connection management for media devices. This can be combined with device specific drivers when specific functionality is required. There is even the possibility to combine NMOS with other APIs for flexible integration.

IP technology introduces more flexibility to establish new production setups on-demand by utilizing the same underlying infrastructure. This enables broadcasters to make better use of available resources and work more efficiently, but at the same time introduces more complexity.

VideoIPath is there to help tackle this complexity to proactively prevent problems and assist in the troubleshooting process to quickly identify the root cause of problems in the infrastructure, and how it impacts ongoing operations.

VideoIPath combines alarm monitoring for integrated devices with control of services, which means that broadcasters do not need to consult multiple systems to get an accurate overview of the current status. The system keeps track of all open alarms on integrated devices, and maintains a log of historic alarms with appropriate retention mechanisms.

VideoIPath provides extensive service assurance building on the alarm management functionality in the system. The system automatically correlates alarms with running services.

This allows operators to focus on problems that affect services. Customized monitoring and connection management GUIs can be created for easier action when a fault is happening.

The system also includes service-templating functionality that enables customization of how alarms are correlated against services. This includes the ability to generate
summary alarms such as loss of service, loss of protection, etc.

VideoIPath allows integration with Grafana and Prometheus for external analysis of collected data both regarding the system itself and services managed by the system.

This allows customers to create customized Grafana dashboards combining data from VideoIPath and other systems. Nevion professional services can also assist with the creation of dashboards

A key focus of Nevion VideoIPath is accessibility and ease-of-use for users.

VideoIPath offers an ergonomic HTML5-based web-interface, which is divided into different modules called “Apps”. Each App is dedicated to a particular type of functionality – whether it’s handling operations, connectivity, monitoring or managing the system’s settings.

All the Apps are combined onto a common desktop (available in light and dark themes), which provides a consistent look-and-feel and the possibility to exchange data between them.

Connect Studio – Schedule, execute and view connections between endpoints and/or groups.

Matrix – Connect multiple endpoints and/or groups using a familiar matrix layout.

Panel – Use a customizable widget-based control panel user interface to control operations.

Alarms – View current, service–affecting, historical alarms, etc.

Inspect – Perform high–level monitoring of services, with drill–down and inspection options.

Inventory – Manage devices that are on–boarded into the system.

Topology – Manage the network connectivity model and media devices’ meta–data.

Profile – Customize the service profile for video, audio, ancillary data, etc.

Security – Manage system security, including access rights.

Import/Export – Import and export larger volume of data to/from the system.

Maintenance – Define maintenance intervals for the network and equipment.

VideoIPath can be hosted on standard suitably sized and powered COTS hardware (either bare metal or virtualized), or in the cloud. VideoIPath has been deployed on all major clouds and hypervisors.

VideoIPath can be deployed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for customers seeking a commercially supported OS or Rocky Linux for customers looking for a free OS alternative.

VideoIPath can work in clusters, meaning multiple instances of the system can share the workload. Clustering is adding resilience against server failure.

The cluster is based on standard components like Docker, HAProxy, and Zookeeper with a Cockroach datastore.

All necessary software components are installed.

VideoIPath’s federation is a unique capability that enables multiple autonomous instances of VideoIPath to collaborate within and across locations.

As each system is autonomous and in charge of its own resources, it continues to function and collaborate, even if problems occur in other parts of the federation. It can be used to compartmentalize several locations, or indeed areas within facilities, for example ingest, production and playout.

The federation capability also enables VideoIPath to reach new heights in scalability, to handle all the production resources and all the media streams involved.

VideoIPath software is designed to be secure in accordance with OWASP guidelines for secure coding. The software and third-party libraries are continuously scanned for vulnerabilities and security fixes are rolled into the next release or made available immediately if critical.

The software is also compliant with EBU recommendations. All external system communication, within a VideoIPath cluster, between federated systems, northbound with other systems and user interfaces, and southbound with equipment may be encrypted using TLS or similar.

The federation concept also adds a layer of security by compartmentalizing the infrastructure, enabling different parts of an organization or different organization to cooperate in an autonomous and secure way.

Given the central part played by VideoIPath in controlling media networks, security is paramount.

VideoIPath has a role-based system, which ensures that authorized personnel can only access the resources they have been assigned to. The role-based security function allows a user to be assigned to only part of the system.

An important aspect of VideoIPath’s security and role-based access, is that it is possible to do multi-tenanting, i.e. provide restricted access to specific departments or outside organizations.

This feature can be used, for example, by broadcasters to provide access to certain production capabilities to production companies they are working with. It can also be used by telecom service providers to allow multiple media companies to control some part of the network, for example to set-up their own connection. In all cases, each tenant is only able to “see” the resources to which they have
been granted access.

VideoIPath can interface northbound with a variety of systems and panels thanks to its own API and its support for interfaces such as NS-BUS (for Sony equipment), Ember+ and MRP. This allows existing and familiar user interfaces or broadcast operations surfaces to be used together with the network orchestration part of VideoIPath

VideoIPath interfaces to network and broadcast devices, as well as to cloud services. This allows the system to handle networks built on combinations of switches from leading vendors, including Arista, Cisco, and Nvidia (Mellanox), and media nodes from a variety of vendors. It also allows it to control production equipment, such as cameras and video and audio mixers from Sony and other vendors.

VideoIPath has one Long Term Support (LTS) release per year. Security updates and corrections will be provided for LTS releases for a 3-year time period following its release, before the LTS version is discontinued. This is the best choice for systems in a production setting.

In addition, Nevion provides stable intermediate releases every quarter. These releases are for customers in the implementation phase or who need access to new functionality not available in the current LTS. Normally systems are upgraded to an LTS release as soon as this is available.

All updates are provided to customers that have a valid maintenance agreement. In addition, customers with premium support get upgrades performed by experienced Nevion engineers.