Single Pipeline Failover
You can implement automatic input failover in a single-pipeline channel to protect the channel from failure in the upstream system or the network connection that is upstream of MediaLive.
You can implement automatic input failover in push inputs, but not in pull inputs.
Keep in mind that the channel can't have more than two push inputs. This means that you can implement one of these scenarios: - You can set up two push inputs in the channel, but you won't be able to implement automatic input failover for either of these inputs. - You can set up one push input in the channel, and you can implement automatic input failover for that input.
Single pipeline channel inputs
If you configure the channel as a single-pipeline channel, MediaLive will only utilize the first endpoint of the input. The second endpoint will not be expected to receive any content. In the provided screenshot, the second endpoint URL of the input is not displayed. Instead, only the functioning endpoint URLs are shown on the breakout create/update form. When a channel has two associated inputs, there will be two URLs displayed, whereas for a single input, only one URL will be shown.
Setup
To implement automatic input failover for the selected push input, you create two standard-class inputs, in the usual way. When you create the channel, you attach these two inputs and then set them up as a failover pair.
When you start the channel, the channel ingests the content from both inputs. But only one input (for example, the blue input in the diagram below) enters the channel pipeline for processing. The other input (the yellow input) is ingested but discarded immediately. The pipeline produces one output for the downstream system, in the usual way.
As this diagram illustrates, there are two instances of the content source.
Failure handling
If there is a failure, the behavior is as follows: - If there is a failure upstream of the first input, then automatic input failover occurs. The channel immediately fails over to the yellow pipeline in the second input, which is already being ingested. The channel fails over and starts processing that input. There is no disruption in the channel pipeline or in the output. - If there is a failure in the channel pipeline (for example, in pipeline 0), MediaLive stops producing output. Switching the input would not help this failure because the problem is in the pipeline, not in the input.
This diagram illustrates the flow after there is a failure upstream of the first input. MediaLive has failed over to the second input.
How to test Failover?
- Open two instances of OBS.
- Stat streaming on the first and third streaming URLs shown in the above screenshot. (Use first endpoint of input)
- Go to the AWS MediaLive console and click on the channel through which you are streaming. Click Alerts tab.
- Once you are able to view stream, stop streaming from input 1.
- Wait for few seconds / minutes, you'll see logs of stream is not receiving in alerts tab.
- After some time, may be few seconds it'll show that it has been Failover to input 2.
- Verify stream in the player, it should play video from input 2.
