For this week’s RCS Live, we thought it would be beneficial for our RCS Cloud Disaster Recovery users to record a quick refresher video on how to enable your RCS Cloud Disaster Recovery instance, specifically the on-air sequencer. RCS Cloud Disaster Recovery, or RCS Cloud DR, is not a virtual machine (VM), but software written on and for an AWS S3 container, following best practices and securities. We can automatically and safely store your audio, metadata, schedules, SQL backups and more using RCS’s Site Replication. Plus, with RCS Cloud DR, users can utilize RCS Cloud’s two-factor authentication and record Empty Voice Track positions that will automatically land back in your local Zetta.
Looking at your RCS Cloud Disaster Recovery instance, remember that RCS has already set everything up and confirmed that changes are being sent automatically. From your perspective, all you must do is enable is the sequencer in times of disaster or monthly maintenance. Since RCS Cloud DR is a simple URL, you can enable your sequencers from any device that has access to the Internet. Just open your System Monitor, expand on the desired station and “Bring Online.” It is a cloud environment, so give the sequencer a couple seconds to boot up and once it’s ready to go, jump to the Playlist module, right click on the desired position and “Sync to Selection.” Finally, from the On-Air module, click on “Play Next,” cycle through the modes, Manual, Auto and Live Assist, and just like that – your disaster recovery solution is on the air.
Let’s take a second to review some excepted behavior. First, if the sequencer is offline, don’t be alarmed if your station isn’t available from the On-Air module station list dropdown. Your station is live as part of your RCS Cloud environment, but the sequencer is simply not online. Once you bring that sequencer online, then you’ll see the station appear from the dropdown.
When you’re taking a station offline, after the disaster has been resolved, just a reminder that you’re only taking the sequencer offline, not the entire station. From the System Monitor, click on “Take offline,” offer any generic reason, and then your station is back in idle mode. Do NOT deactivate the station, as that will also remove automatic updates surrounding that station. Remember, Site Replication will continue to upload audio, metadata, schedules, and SQL backups, but if the station is deactivated, there’s nowhere for Site Replication to save your logs.
As you can see, backing up your database and having a disaster recovery solution is simple with RCS Cloud Disaster Recovery. If you’re interested in RCS Cloud DR, you can reach out to your local RCS contact or email sales@rcsworks.com. For a more detailed RCS Live, we have additional RCS Cloud DR videos on our RCS Live Archive, like this one.
Don’t forget that we’re always looking for Zetta 5.22.1 and GSelector 5.1 Beta users, as well as your photos for our #StudioSpotlight. Just email marketing@rcsworks.com. We’re also hiring, check out the latest positions on our career page. We have some exciting new RCS Lives coming down the pipeline, including GSelector Custom Song/Link Windows, where users can design their own layouts. This is going to be a game changer! So don’t forget to check us out every Thursday at 11am ET on Facebook, Twitter Live, Twitch and YouTube for our weekly RCS Live.