Manage Spare Capture Appliances

Overview

The capture appliance, like any piece of equipment, will, on rare occasions, fail to operate. When this happens, you can return the non-functioning appliance to Echo360. Contact Technical Support for instructions.

You might want to keep at least one capture appliance as a spare so you can continue to fully support operations while the non-functioning appliance is being repaired.

How Many Spare Appliances Do I Need?

We recommend that you have up to four capture appliances as spares, based on the number of appliances you have now.

You might want to increase the number of spares if you answer "yes" to some or all of these questions.

• Business questions: What happens if the device fails?
  
  • Is lecture capture generating revenue?
  • Is lecture capture critical to your school's identity?
  • Is it a serious problem if a lecture is not captured?
  • Will many lectures be uncaptured if a device fails?
• Physical use questions: How likely is it that the device will fail?
  
  • Is the physical environment static?
  • Do many different people connect and disconnect devices or change settings?
  • Are devices installed in many different locations? (You might need to have additional spares if you support multiple campuses.)
  • Is the device moved often?
  • Are there network or building issues that can damage the appliance?
  • Are there frequent power spikes?
  • Is the device in constant use?
  • Is the device un-monitored when not in use?

Prepare the Spare Appliance

When you receive the spare appliance you should:

1. Register the appliance.
2. Check the installation to make sure the appliance detects the display, video, and audio signals.
3. Reset it to the factory defaults using the device_reset.tgz tool. Contact technical support for this tool.

Replacing a Device with a Spare Device 

 If you need to replace an existing capture device with a spare device, there are some essential steps you need to follow. The below steps provide basic instructions, however, you will want to refer to Retire a Device for detailed information on the process. Be sure you have already prepared the spare device for use.

Unassign the existing device from the room to which it is assigned.

1. Navigate to Configuration > Devices.
2. Hover over the device name and click edit.
3. In the Current Room Assignment section, select "Choose" from the Campus, Building, and Room drop-down lists.
4. Check the other settings if necessary, to be sure the replacement device is configured similarly if appropriate.
5. Click Save.

Assign the spare device to the room from which the old device was removed.

1. Navigate to Configuration > Devices.
2. Hover over the device name and click edit.
3. In the Current Room Assignment section, select the Campus, Building, and Room to which to assign the replacement device.
4. Click Save.

At this point, the system must make background updates to the schedule captures slated for the room, to allow them to use the newly assigned device.

You may also want to review all schedules assigned to the room, and manually update any that require it.

While you can retire the device while it is assigned to the room (the unassigning happens automatically), it is best if you manually unassign and reassign, to be sure no captures are missed.