The concept of ‘network observability’ is common practice within IP network design and management teams in the world of IT. It is probably familiar to those involved in OTT/streaming infrastructure, but is not yet widely adopted in broadcast production. As broadcast networks become more complex, and as broadcasters increasingly use internet-based contribution and cloud-based systems, it seems inevitable that network observability will become a central part of broadcasters live IP network strategies.

The idea of network observability is deceptively simple: having detailed insight into how data is flowing across an entire IP network and cloud infrastructure significantly increases the chances of understanding the general system health of the network. It improves the chances of becoming aware of impending system disruption or failures as they happen, and identifying the root causes of issues and resolving them quickly. It also has the potential to enable users to analyze predicted future network performance so that they can design and deploy systems and projects much more effectively.

In practicality, network observability is a philosophical approach to a suite of software tools that monitor various aspects of a network for performance and errors, and provide dashboards and alerts.

Download this Essential Guide now. It has been written for technologists, broadcast engineers, their managers, and anybody looking to improve their knowledge of broadcast IP infrastructure design, optimization and management.