subject: Digital Signage Management: How To Keep All The Plates Spinning [print this page] One of my earliest memories as a small child was sitting down with my folks to watch the "Ed Sullivan Show." Many may remember the variety show for the historic appearance of the Beatles and the beginning of the British invasion. Others still may remember the program for the host's famous catch phrase -something like, "We have a really big show" with the word "show" sounding exactly like the drawn out pronunciation of the word "shoe."
What I remember the most was a stage act in which the performer began spinning bowls on wooden poles protruding from a platform. As the act progressed he also began spinning up dinner plates, positioned between the poles balancing the spinning bowls, on their edges. To keep all of this in motion, the performer would run back and forth between poles, adding more spinning momentum to the bowls as he added more plates and bowls to the action. To the amazement of this little boy watching in awe with his parents, not a single bowl or plate crashed to the ground; rather the performer concluded his act by collecting each spinning object and neatly arranging them on the platform.
This childhood memory paints a mental picture for me of what it must be like to manage an extensive network of digital signs without proper monitoring, alert notification and control functionality. I can see in my mind's eye some poor soul having to run between monitors to make sure they are on, playing back the right content and functioning properly. But instead of traversing the width of platform no bigger than dining room table, this digital signage manager would have to run back and forth between signs scattered around an arena, across a campus or even around town.
Fortunately for digital signage network administrators, tools exist to eliminate the need to visit individual displays in person and instead provide the ability to remotely monitor and control all displays from a central command center.
Various approaches can be taken, but some of the more useful elements in any such system include support for: SNMP (simple network management protocol messaging); snapshot confidence monitoring of all displays on the network; serial control of monitor functions, including on, off and volume control; and some degree of network and device diagnostics.
Without these basic tools, managing, controlling and monitoring the performance of a digital signage network would be a feat akin to keeping all of those spinning plates and bowls in motion.
In future columns, I'll layout more details about each of the important elements of digital signage network monitoring and control, but for now, I just wanted to set the table with lots and lots of spinning plates and bowls.
One final note: If you are interested in seeing the spinning plate and bowl act, go to YouTube and search for "Erich Brenn 'Plate Spinning' on The Ed Sullivan Show."
