EVS Cerebrum

About

EVS Cerebrum is a control and orchestration system for broadcast and live production environments. It acts as a central "brain" that connects, configures, controls, and monitors a wide range of broadcast equipment and software, whether on-premises or in the cloud. The EVS Cerebrum can be managed and configured using DataMiner, showcasing seamless integration capabilities.

Key Features

Centralized device control: Manage a wide range of broadcast equipment (routers, servers, cameras, audio gear, multiviewers) from one unified interface, reducing complexity and operator errors.
Customizable user interfaces: Create role-specific control panels and dashboards so operators see just the controls they need, improving efficiency and simplifying workflows.
Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks like routing presets, macros, and sequences, which speeds up show setup and reduces the risk of manual mistakes during live events.
Real-time monitoring and alerts: Continuously monitor system health and status across devices, with alerts for faults or performance issues, helping teams respond proactively before problems affect a broadcast.
Hybrid IP/SDI integration: Seamlessly support both traditional SDI infrastructure and modern IP-based workflows (NMOS/SMPTE standards), enabling flexible deployment across on-premises locations, OB vans, and cloud environments.

Use Cases

Disparate Systems, No Unified View

Challenge: In a Cerebrum environment, devices from different vendors (routers, switchers, servers, audio, multiviewers) each have their own management interfaces. Operators lack a single, comprehensive view across all infrastructure.

Solution: DataMiner acts as a single pane of glass NMS/OSS platform. It can ingest telemetry and status from Cerebrum-controlled devices plus broadcast network gear, IT infrastructure, cloud services, and IP network elements, normalizing them into a unified dashboard for alerts, performance metrics, and trends.

Limited Long-Term Monitoring & Reporting

Challenge: Cerebrum is optimized for real-time control, not long-term performance data storage. That complicates historical trend analysis, for instance of uptime, frequency of faults, or capacity usage.

Solution: DataMiner keeps long-term historical data, enabling trend analysis, reporting, and SLA compliance tracking. Operations teams can see patterns over days, weeks, or months and build reports for capacity planning and operational improvement.

Multi-Domain Correlation Difficulties

Challenge: When an issue occurs (e.g., video freeze or routing fault), teams struggle to correlate this to a device problem, network congestion, or software glitch because information is siloed.

Solution: DataMiner’s cross-domain Correlation engine correlates alerts and state changes across IP networks, servers, SDN controllers, and broadcast gear. That means operators can quickly determine the root cause instead of chasing symptoms in different systems.

Scaling Remote/Distributed Operations

Challenge: As productions become hybrid (remote sites, cloud, OB vans), managing and fault-finding across distributed Cerebrum instances and networking equipment grows complex.

Solution: DataMiner supports centralized management of distributed environments. It can monitor remote Cerebrum servers, transport networks (WAN, VPN), cloud services, and edge devices, enabling centralized alerting and remote remediation, and reducing boots-on-the-ground troubleshooting.

Manual Configuration & Error Prone Provisioning

Challenge: Setting up complex workflows, device configs, or service paths through Cerebrum can be manual and repetitive, increasing the risk of misconfiguration.

Solution: DataMiner offers workflow automation and provisioning templates that can trigger configuration changes consistently across devices. Instead of manual steps, teams deploy pre-tested templates for common workflows, reducing errors and speeding up deployments.

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