7.4.2. Archive Configuration

This section has the same basic display as “Archiving: Archives” but has different control buttons:

Fig. 7.45 Archive Configuration

Add Archive

Archive drives that connect to the recorder via networking must first be added to the recorder so that they show up as selectable drives on the Setup Archives page. Once added, they can then be configured using the ‘Configure’ button. As will all archive drives, the recorder must also have the correct license keys installed to be able to access the archive drives. After clicking this button, you must select which type of addable archive drive to add to the system. The options are NAS (Network Attached Storage, Windows SMB) or NFS (Network File System) (which are also sometimes known as ‘Network Shares’), or ‘Centralized Archive’, which is another NexLog DX-Series™ recorder which will be acting as an archive device for the current recorder. You will be able to configure archive parameters specific to the NAS, NFS or Centralized Archive here, these options are identical to the ones provided under ‘Configure Archive’ for the archive drive and will be described below.

NexLog DX-Series™ Recorders can be configured with one NAS or NFS archive, total, for free; configuring more than one requires an additional add-on license.

Delete Archive

Archive drives that have been previously added can be deleted via this button. Physical drives can not be deleted, only ejected.

Archive Transfer

If you insert previously–recorded archive media into a drive, this button can be used to perform a restore operation, i.e., copy the calls from that medium back to RAID. Several checks are performed before transferring the data:

• Does the serial number of the recorder that recorded the archive medium agree with that of the destination recorder?

• Are the channel names of the recorder the same as the destination?

• Does the format of the data on the archive conform to that of the destination?

• Is there any problem with or damage to the archive medium to be transferred?

• Are all (or some) of these calls duplicates of calls already on the recorder?

If none of these are appropriate for the medium, or if you indicated that you wish to proceed, the archive transfer will commence. All drives operate independently. You can restore archive media in all available drives, or you can even record archives on one medium while restoring from another.

Important

The restoration process cannot continue once the RAID is full, so unless you have a special reason for doing otherwise, always restore from the most recent archive backwards.

If you are restoring archives after a new installation, use the Set Archive Time facility to make sure that new archives are only recorded from the present forward. If you don’t set this and begin new archiving after you have restored your archives from a previous installation, you might find yourself “re-archiving” the restored archives.

Restore Metadata

Metadata archives contain just the metadata for calls on a system; this is a way to archive any notes, annotations, etc, that are applied after a recording is made. In the case of a system failure, restoring from an archive made at recording time will be missing any metadata added afterwards; restoring metadata will update the metadata on these calls to include what was present at the time metadata was archived. To create metadata archives, use the Backup User Edited Metadata feature of Schedules, discussed below under Utilities.

Configure

This screen allows you to configure your archiving drive. Select the Archive on the Archive Configuration page and then click Configure and you will be greeted by this tabbed page that lets you configure settings, time, groups and tracking.

Fig. 7.46 Archive Display in Configuration Manager

7.4.2.1. Settings

Drive Type

The type of drive.

Data Archived

The amount of data archived since install. This number is in Bytes.

Archive Mode

Archive drives mounted inside the NexLog DX-Series™ recorder are set to sequential by default. Sequential means that after the current drive finishes archiving it will start archiving on the next drive in the chain, assuming the media is inserted and formatted without any data on it. Parallel mode allows systems with two drives to be used simultaneous for two different archiving tasks.

Auto Resume

A recorder that is turned off while an archive medium is being recorded will automatically continue recording that archive from where it left off when the recorder is restarted. If it isn’t enabled, then any archive media in the recorder when power is applied will appear as they would if they were simply inserted in the drive. This setting also controls auto resuming on Network Archives after a network disconnect.

Auto Start

An archive drive set to Auto Start will automatically start archiving anytime the drive is in a state where archiving is available. The only times it will not start archiving are when there is no media, full (or damaged) media, the drive is in browse mode, or when the other drive in a sequential pair is already archiving. You may need to turn this off temporarily to be able to eject or browse a drive if you want to do so while it is only partially full.

Auto Eject

Ejects the media after it’s full. This is only applicable for Blu-Ray drives.

Format Protection

Protects the media from being accidently formatted until the time on the recorder is greater than the oldest call on the media plus the configured protection seconds. Note that this option only prevents you from formatting the media on the NexLog DX-Series™ recorder, it does not protect against placing the media in a PC and formatting it there.

Create Wav File

This option will include an 8-bit, 8.0khz WAV file of each call, playable directly from the disc in any computer able to read the archive media. This will of course reduce the number of calls that fit on a given disc as it consumes more space than just the native encoding.

Archive Without Media (audio)

This option allows you to archive only the recording and metadata databases. This option would typically be used in a multi-recorder environment (using Enhanced Reports) to allow reports to be ran from a single server.

7.4.2.2. Time

Set Archive Time

Allows you to set the current archive pointer.

When you start archiving, the first call to be archived is determined by an internal archive pointer. This pointer tracks where you left off archiving with the previous disk, so that the next disk will begin where the previous one left off. Also, if you are in the middle of a disk and you stop archiving, for whatever reason, such as the need to browse calls on the disk, you can resume archiving at the point where you left off. The goal is to ensure that only consecutive calls are recorded on each disk, making labeling and searching easier. This pointer is maintained automatically.

However, there are times when you may want to manually set the current pointer location. For example, you may have misplaced an archive disk and you want to re-archive calls. Of course, to do so the calls must still be present on the RAID.

To manually set the current archive time, select a date and time using the calendar control and save the form. The next time you start archiving, the calls on your RAID closest to the new archive time setting will be archived first.

When you have completed recording a medium whose starting time you have selected with the Set Archive Time feature, the time pointer is set to the time of the end of the medium just recorded. It is NOT set to the end of other data that may have been archived. Sometimes this is desired behavior, such as when you want to record more data than will fit on a single medium from the starting time you set. Sometimes it may not be, such as when you want to continue archiving from the end of the last medium you recorded in the normal sequence. If the second is your requirement, you can note the desired time and reset the archive pointer to this time. If you failed to make a note, you can take the most recent archive medium, read the “Media info” for that disk, and set the pointer to that time.

Important

As noted in the display, the Archive time is set in UTC time. If you are setting the archive time to start at the end of a previously recorded archive medium, you will probably use the “Media Info” feature to check on the end time of that medium. The recorder displays “Media Info” in UTC since the archives are portable and must be compatible over time zones and different playback hardware. To dovetail the recorded and new archive times, you must convert your local time to UTC for this setting.

Archive Delay

how long to archive behind the recorders current time.

Archive Duration

Limit the time period contained on an archive. This is useful if you only want one day’s worth of recordings on a media, for example.

7.4.2.3. Groups

Use Channel Group

Set an archive drive to use one of the configured archive groups.

7.4.2.4. Tracking

Tracking is an option that prevents calls from being left out of archives. Because of the inherent nature of the technology involved, recorders do not always receive calls from VoIP, Screen Capture and Centralized Archiving sources in real-time. They can, under certain conditions, end up receiving calls hours or even days after they were originally recorded. This can have a significant impact on archiving.

Take the following scenario for example:

• A busy NexLog DX-Series™ Recorder with both local input board sources and screen channels.

• The archive pointer on a Blu-ray drive is set to current time.

• Calls are currently coming in on the local input channels.

• Due to temporary but severe network congestion, a screen capture client has buffered an hour’s worth of calls, which is just now transferring to the NexLog DX-Series™ Recorder.

Starting to archive calls to this Blu-ray drive would leave the hour of screen calls unarchived. Because of this, archive drives can optionally be set to wait for remote data, which will prevent any archive from writing past the current archive time of any source that is not currently up-to-date.

In the same scenario as the preceding one, but with Tracking turned on, the result would be the Blu-ray drive would pause in archiving mode, idle, until the screen system caught up to the archive time that had been initially set, at which point the Blu-ray would begin to fill with all of the calls, leaving nothing unarchived.

This feature is optional only because a Call Source may be temporarily offline and one needs to archive calls anyway. In that case, turn off CST, create the archive you need, then turn CST back on and reset the archive time.

7.4.2.5. Media Selection

This section assumes you are using Blu-ray disks for archiving. Eventide recommends any of the following configurations of media for Blu-ray archiving:

• For NexLog DX-Series™ recorders equipped with the Blu-Ray drives, use the following media:

  • Optical Quantum 25 GB BD-RE, single-sided media, (non-cartridge)

Note

Regarding Data Protection: Although the recorder incorporates an archive protection mechanism, this is only effective when playing the archive in the recorder itself. When playing the archive in an ordinary PC, it is not protected from being overwritten.

CD-R Media: CD-R and DVD-R/RW/RW+, etc. media are not supported for archiving. They are supported for exporting media via the Front Panel. If you try to archive onto a CD-R, it won’t work, and it may not be immediately clear why, so be sure to confirm that you are using the proper (Blu-ray or DVD-RAM) archive medium.

7.4.2.6. Sequential and Parallel Modes

These modes apply only to recorders with more than one archive drive. Otherwise, the setting has no effect.

Sequential mode

means that archiving will continue automatically to the next available medium. In the following figure, the top disk is writing calls. When the disk fills up, archiving will continue on the middle drive, and then on the bottom drive. The middle and bottom drives must contain formatted, blank media. After the disks are full, they can be flipped if they are double-sided, and the process will continue. For example, when the top disk Side A fills up, the middle disk Side A will begin recording. When that is full, the bottom disk Side A will begin recording. After Side A is full on any of the disks, you can flip the disk to Side B. After the bottom disk, Side A, is full, the recording will continue on the top drive Side B, and so on.

Parallel mode

means that archiving will not continue automatically on the next available drive. Instead, you can begin recording on the top drive and on the middle drive simultaneously (and the bottom drive if you wish) and all drives will record the same data. This mode uses more disks but provides redundancy.

7.4.2.7. Network Archive Storage (NAS) Configuration

The recorder can archive not only to its own internal drives and removable media, it can also use network attached storage (NAS) on a typical Microsoft Windows network for archiving. Using more than one NAS on a recorder requires an Add-On License.

Fig. 7.47 Adding a NAS (Windows SMB) Network Archive

Hostname

The NETBIOS or DNS name of the server where the archives will be stored. This server must be a Microsoft Windows server or other system that emulates Microsoft Windows file sharing.

Share Name

Tthe name of the share on the server where the archives will be stored. Microsoft Windows syntax for specifying a network location is:

\\Hostname\Sharename

For example, if your network administrator has specified that the recorder archives can be stored at

\\BigServer\RecorderArchives

The NAS Hostname should be configured as BigServer, and the Share Name should be configured as RecorderArchives.

Workgroup

The Workgroup or Domain of the server where archives will be stored.

Username

A valid username that has been granted read/write access to the hostname and share name where the archives will be stored.

Password

The Password associated with the Username on the Microsoft Windows server.

7.4.2.8. Archive Splitter

Archiving media that has the potential to contain a very large amount of call data, such as R-HD, NAS and USB drives, can be configured to be split into month sized folders, for faster loading times and search results when put into browse mode. The splitter is configured with the Schedules page found under Utilities.